Dawn Child
by KTHunter
Summary: The final story in the "Twilight Child" saga
1. Chapter 1

Hello all, and thanks for your patience. I am now releasing _Dawn Child_, but I am taking a different tack this time. The story is not yet complete, but I thought I would release the chapters that I do have ready, one at a time, instead of the entire story at once, as is my wont. I think it will be easier to get the story finished and posted this way. I do not have a definite posting schedule in mind. My schedule is a bit wiggy at times, but I will post as I can.

Here are the _Twilight Child_ stories in order:

_Twilight Child_

_Deeper_

_Stair Luge Samurai_

_Coyote_

_He Thinks He's Elvis _

_Nadir_

_Dawn Child_ --- in progress

Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, Raven, or Gar Logan/Beast Boy or any of the other Titans mentioned here.

**Author's Notes**:

This series is based on the comic series and not the animated series, so if you have only seen the animated version of the Titans, you may encounter situations and characters with which you may not be familiar. Hopefully, though, there will be enough author's notes along the way to fill you in on the gaps between the two versions of the Titans.

The "Twilight Child" series breaks continuity with the current Teen Titans series at issue #20. Any events in the current series after that point (including Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later storylines) do not affect this arc.

This story arc leans heavily on Teen Titans history from the Marv Wolfman era to the present day. For those of you who have not read the earlier stories, I have tried to include some details in my Author's Notes at the end of each chapter. I prefer to use author's notes rather than use lengthy as-you-know-Bob explanations that would bog down the flow of the story. However, if I leave out an explanation, feel free to send me a private message via my profile. I am more than happy to answer any questions, and I love getting email. If you see anything that is wildly inaccurate (or if you just want to talk Titans), please let me know, and I will do my best to correct it.

I am enjoying the current series very much. If you haven't read the comics yet, I encourage you to check them out. I am really looking forward to the new Titans series that is due out this year!

This is the last planned story in the Twilight Child series. I don't think it will be my last story, ever. It's just the end of this particular 'chapter' in our characters' lives. I hope you enjoy it.

With deep thanks to all who have read all of the stories up to this point and to all of my friends on the RBSU Forum and on deviantArt. This is dedicated to you all.

A very special thanks to Six String Samurai for beta-reading the story for me. I truly appreciate it, and the time you are spending on it means a lot to me.

* * *

_Dawn Child_ – Chapter 1

_Forgiveness._

Raven savored the flavor of the emotion she had craved for so long. Just that morning, the hole in her heart carved by her estrangement from Wally West was filled with the lightness that forgiveness leaves in its wake. Its taste was light and sweet, like honeysuckle.

"It's not often I get a second chance at a first date." Gar's voice floated across her thoughts. Resting his chin into his palm, he sighed deeply and continued to stare at his dining companion. "Thank you."

Raven replied with a shy smile of her own as she returned her focus to the moment. Her fingers stroked the edge of the tablecloth as she watched him spear a forkful of salad. "But I remember our first date with great fondness. It was simply…interrupted."

"Ah-ha," he said with a chuckle. "So you _do_ kiss on a first date."

"Not that I've had that many first dates, mind you." Her smile deepened as she bowed her head and closed her eyes. She opened them slowly and gazed at him steadily. "But two of them with _you_ will do just fine."

A warm breeze ruffled the curled edges of her hair over the linen skin of her shoulders, which were bare except for the slender straps of her dress. The flickering flame of the candle reflected off the satin, giving it a rosy glow.

"How is the salad? They get kinda fancy sometimes. Do you recognize all the—"

"Yes. Radicchio. Arugula. The words are as delicious as the leaves themselves." She drew the words out, letting them roll out of her lips, as if she were tasting each syllable.

"Well, I wanted to take you someplace nice before you headed back to school next week, little miss senior. And I…" He swallowed hard before continuing. "I wanted to apologize for being such a jerk before. I _never_ meant to make you think I was breaking up with you."

She reached across the table and stroked the wrist that was poking out from under his dinner jacket as he continued. "I was just scared, that's all?"

"Of what?"

"Of you going somewhere that I can't follow, where I can't… I can't help you."

"Beloved," she said as she shook her head slowly, "I cannot promise that—"

Gar cleared his throat. "_And_ I'm just glad that Chez Paul delivers. That way, there's no paparazzi underfoot."

"And you are not a 'jerk'," she whispered back.

Before he could reply, a shadow crossed the table. Swift hands whisked the salad plates away. Raven looked up at the waiter and saw Bart looking back at her, his fake mustache twitching beneath his nose as he spoke. "Eez eet good, mam-selle?"

"Excellent, Bart…"

"Ah, but for tonight, I am 'le garçon', not 'le Bart', mam-selle. Ze salade, eet eez very nice-ah tonight. " He switched to an Austrian inflection. "I'll be back." He was gone as quickly as he had arrived.

Warm summer stars winked overhead above the breeze. She glanced up every now and again at her star, the one Jimmy Red Cloud had shown her that one evening in Twilight Canyon. Its light was dimmed somewhat as it competed with the lights of the surrounding city, but it glimmered down on them nonetheless. The amber blush of the tower lights reflected off the water. The waves folded across the bay like dark silk blowing in the wind. The pair's eyes wandered between the hypnotic swells of the water and each other. Soft music drifted in from somewhere behind them.

A green hand reached across the table and wrapped around her tapered fingers. "Another advantage of being here is that we have our own personal dance floor. It'll be a few minutes before the main course comes out. Would you…can you…would you like to dance?"

The warmth in her violet eyes flickered in the candlelight for the briefest of moments. "Yes," she replied. "I can dance, a little."

He lifted their joined hands over the candle and led her to the small space between the table and the edge of the balcony. She began to extend an arm out for a waltz-like stance, the one that Jericho had taught her long ago, but Gar gently grasped her arm and tucked her hands behind his neck. His fingers found their way to her shoulders and made slow trails down her back to her waist, and his arms pulled her in towards him. His cheek brushed gently against hers as he whispered into her ear.

"This is smooth jazz, baby." The envelope of his warmth folded around her as his arms held her close. His words were low and husky. "Close dancing is required."

The music danced on the breeze: the scratch-scratch of percussion, the low crawl of bass, the soft random tinkling of piano keys, and then the soft crooning of a woman's voice, earthy in their ears. The gentle beat shuffled their feet from side to side.

"You're certainly happy," he observed.

"I have not felt this well since I first left Azarath. Since I was much younger."

"You _are_ younger again, that's the beauty of it." He gave her a firm squeeze. "You get to live those years again, pain-free, thanks to your grandfather."

"At least for a little while," she replied as she rested her cheek on his shoulder. The coarse fabric of his jacket rustled around her face. "But let us speak only of happy things, just now."

"Well, I certainly want to keep you happy. You kind of glow when you're content, you know? It seems to just leak out of you. It's a wonder the whole city doesn't see it."

"It is easy with you, beloved. To be happy."

Her eyes drifted closed as she allowed him to sway her in a slow circle. The gentle sea breeze tickled her shoulders as she cuddled closer into his embrace. She tilted her head slightly to let his warm wet-dog scent curl around her face.

"This keeps getting easier," she mumbled into his shoulder as their movements to the music became smaller and smaller. "I don't think I have ever been so… _blissful_, blissful like this."

Another chorus of the song drifted by, and she couldn't remember the last time her feet had moved. The dance was inside her head, now, warming her mind and filling it with drowsy, cozy thoughts.

"I can tell," he whispered, each word softer in volume but more intense in feeling. "You don't resist me when I hold you any more." His arms slid up to her shoulder blades, and he cupped them in his palms. "I know you feel it. Feel how I want you with me at night, all night." His lips rested against her cheek. "Like then. And I want you to know I—" He hesitated. "I've thought about our questions, the ones that we talked about that morning at Charlie's. And how to get them answered. I'm going to answer a few. Tomorrow. I'm going to S.T.A.R. to find out. Tomorrow."

Her head drew back from his shoulder, and her wide eyes searched his. Her lips parted to answer, but no words came. He kissed her again, closer to those open lips.

She could barely hear his next words above the salt-laden wind. "I want to find out if I can…if I can make love to you. Without hurting you."

"Garfield, I—" His name managed to sneak its way through her vocal chords, but the rest of it disappeared as the last strains of the song faded into the night.

"It's all right, baby. Not until we're both ready. I remember. I want it, but I want it right. I just… just want to know. They almost made me wait a whole month, but they managed to work me in tomorrow."

The words skipped down her spine as his hands inched their way back down to her waist. But the chill that she felt was a luscious one. Her aggressive side stirred deep within her, coiled up, ready to argue with her shyness, her fears, but for once the argument never came. It was drowned out by his lips slipping over hers, by his tongue sliding across hers, by his breath rising over her face. Then he held that kiss there, lingering, until she returned that intensity to him. His kindness and tenderness flowed around her as her mouth pushed into his… and her shivering stopped.

The sound of a clearing throat shook them. "Zee din-air, eet eez read-ee!"

* * *

"Thanks for the help tonight, Bart," Gar said as he folded the tablecloth over his arm. "It means a lot to me to be able to do something special for Raven without a lot of prying eyes."

"Hey, always happy to help," Bart replied while he peeled the fluffy faux facial hair away from his upper lip. He waggled his eyebrows. "Good luck tomorrow, by the way."

"_Tomorrow_? You heard what we were talking about?"

"Nope."

"Oh," Gar sighed in relief.

"Conner did."

"_BART_!!!!!"

* * *

A/N:

The thought of Bart pretending to be a French waiter just cracks me up. I can just imagine him with one of his old picture-thought-balloons, with a picture of a snail (a la Gary from Spongebob) with a circle with a line through it, as he thought about escargot.

There are multiple references here to the events depicted in _Coyote_, including the references to Raven's grandfather. He saved her life and ended his own by absorbing all of her pain. The exchange of energy caused a landslide the destroyed the cave where they were at the time. His body was never found.

Gar feels like he was a jerk due to the happenings in _Nadir_, where he was arguing with Raven about the plan to contact Jericho while he was trapped on the disk.

Back in the Wolfman-Perez days, it was mentioned that Joey had taught Raven how to dance. Off-panel, though. (snap) That would've been a cute scene.


	2. Chapter 2

Joe Wilson jerked awake. The cold sweat streaming off his chest and shoulders made the stiff sheets that covered him feel sticky and clammy. His throat felt tight and dry. With his heart pounding, he grasped at the space on the other half of the bed.

"R-Raven?" The name barely made it out of his chattering teeth as he patted the mattress next to him.

_Empty,_ he thought. _Where is she?_

He looked around the bed and saw the room as if for the first time. Shadows of an empty dresser and a clear desk and a vacant closet surrounded him. When his eyes adjusted to the faint light trickling through the window, he remembered where he was… and where he wasn't.

_She's with Gar, not you, Joe,_ he reminded himself. _She was never really _with_ you. Keep remembering that._

Tossing the sheets aside, he set his feet on the floor. He wriggled his toes into the rough carpet and gingerly pushed himself to a standing position. He wobbled a little as he shuffled to the bathroom.

_Gar? I never would have thought… well, at least they're not married,_ he mused. _Maybe, just maybe…ouch!_

A sharp pain raked across the tip of his tongue as it found his unwilling host's fangs.

Cradling his jaw, he flicked on the light with his elbow. Blinking in the harsh light, he stared at himself in the mirror for the twentieth time that night.

_Yeah, but you've grabbed the body of the one person who wouldn't stand a chance with her. Great, Romeo. Just great. _He curled his lip upward to examine the strange teeth and to observe the drop of blood on his tongue. It tasted like his dream._ You're basically a vampire, now, Joey. Smooth move._

He splashed some water on his face to relieve the incessant itching in his eyes. He cupped his hands to catch more liquid that he then poured through his mouth. _So thirsty. Why am I so thirsty?_

He had never really known he was trapped on that disk for so long, not until Cyborg sat him down and told him the whole story. As far as he had known, he was just living his life with the woman he had grown to love. For some reason, for all that time he had only found it slightly odd that the images of everyone he had ever possessed with his powers were always around, buzzing and chanting their thoughts to him.

_Raven handled them. She took good care of me. She…_ He splashed more icy water on his face, and then he slurped more from his cupped hands. _She wasn't Raven. Not really. Remember, it was just a fantasy. Remember. Remember._

As he reached for the towel, he looked over the small collection of toiletries on the sink. Tiny hotel soaps. A new toothbrush. A disposable razor. Sample-sized shampoo and lotion bottles. They were the kinds of things people keep stashed in case an unexpected guest drops by. He could not see one thing that was personal or familiar to him. The bedroom, too, felt sterile and lifeless. He kept expecting to see _her_ next to him, to feel her holding him, to sense her warm weight next to him in the bed, the way he had – or thought he had – for years. He kept feeling the empty space around him instead.

He dried his face and slipped into the plain white robe that he found on the back of the bathroom door. He tied the belt and wished once more for something familiar: the texture of guitar strings under his fingers, the calming voice of his mother, the soft colors of a Monet, the gentle perfume of her hair…

_Stop it. Just stop it. She's gone. Along with mom, the paintings, even my damn guitar. Everything I've ever known is gone._

The low mournful call of a saxophone drifted in under his door. He glared at the tousled bedclothes, and then at the clock shining a soft green light back at him. _Look at the time_, he thought. _Time_. Time was moving forward for him again, when for so long it had just stalled on him. In that strange marbled palace that had been his home for so long, time had flowed slowly, like a gently thawing glacier. Now it pushed him along, and even if he stood still and held his breath, he could still feel it streaming by. Things that had been different for others for years were just now changing for him, changing too fast. It was like riding a runaway escalator – even if he froze himself like a statue, everything kept moving. It made him dizzy.

Unable to bear another minute alone, he followed the music down the hall to the library. The rough carpet scratched at his bare feet. Vic's back was to the door, and his head was swaying slowly with the music as he read several reports spread in front of him.

"Coltrane?" Joe asked, jumping slightly at the sound of his own – _no, Sebastian's? --_ voice. "I swear, Vic, it's good to see that some things never change."

Vic turned at the sound of his voice. "Joey!" He grinned broadly as the young man approached the table. "There's a little Thelonious Monk in there, too. I hope I didn't wake you up."

"No, you didn't," Joe replied as he slumped into a nearby chair. "I couldn't sleep, anyway."

"Nightmares? Any worse than last night's?"

"I'm not sure what they are," he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm not even sure if they're _my_ dreams or _his_. And if they're his, are they just dreams, or are they memories?" A shudder crawled down his spine as he remembered the bloody aftertaste of his most recent attempt to sleep. "I sure hope they're not memories."

"Any of _your_ memories in there?"

Joey closed his eyes tightly, once more feeling the dryness in his throat. "I'm not sure. Did I – did I really do that to Wintergreen? I can't believe I'd… I'd…"

Cyborg picked up the mug of coffee to his right and stared into it. The steam breathed a fog onto his chrome chin. "You weren't yourself, Joey," he said into the cup.

Jericho opened his eyes and held out his marbled hands. "_Look_ at me. I'm _still_ not myself, Vic. I look like I've been carved out of marble! I don't know what I am."

"Hmmmmmm. Well. Any idea how long you're going to be driving?"

"You mean, how long do I have until he wakes up and starts screaming for his Mother again?" Joe ran the unfamiliar hands through the foreign white hair. He pointed to his appropriated skull. "I have no idea. He moves around every once in while. I can force him back down now, but for how long? I honestly don't know."

"At least you've got a little time to get acclimated to being back until we figure out what we're gonna do when he wakes up. If he wakes up," Vic replied. He chuckled. "I heard you had some help today."

"Bart? Oh, yes. He gave me the whirlwind tour of the tower, literally." Joe laughed for the first time in this new body, but the sound of the laughter unnerved him. It died on his lips quickly. He gathered his thoughts before speaking again. "I think he's adopted me. He said something about a stair luge and… and… samurai?"

Vic's guffaw echoed around the shelves. "Oh, lawd, he's after you about that already? Is that a story and a half! With Bart around, you have to keep a bicycle helmet handy."

"Better yet, a hard hat."

"You learn quickly, my friend." He raised the mug into the air with a wide grin. "He's really good at keeping things lively around here. I'll give him that," Vic said, his red eye blinking in time with his chuckles. "Things are going to be quiet around here once his school starts up again. Thank God."

"He's been kind to me, especially considering that I…" His eyes stared at the table as his voice dropped to say, "… that I basically destroyed his knee with one shot."

"Bart's resilient. And very forgiving."

_And he's really good at keeping me away from Raven, too,_ Joey noted. He shivered as he thought, _Stop, stop, stop it. _His fingers stabbed at the air as his hands tried to form the words that were screaming through his head.

Vic placed his coffee cup on the table beside a stack of disks. "Joey, you're doing it again. Use your words, buddy."

"Sorry," Joe replied aloud with a deep exhalation. He grasped the arms of his chair to still his restive hands. "You know what they say about old habits. So, what are you reading?"

Cyborg nodded, as if he were grateful for the change in subject. "Just some case history. A group called the Black Rose Underground that we tangled with recently. Some strange stuff, if you're interested."

"I've got nothing but time." He waved his fingers at the side of his head. "At least, I think so."

"Well, take a look and see what we've been up to lately. See what you're getting yourself into again."

Joey pulled the pages to him with his fingertips. "Again? You mean—"

"You'll always be a Titan, Joey. Like you said, some things never change. We've done so much lately… we've even had an unexpected field trip where we met our future selves. Let me tell you, it's pretty freaky to meet an older version of yourself! Some pretty scary stuff. Sure, we've got some issues to straighten out before you can really go out on mission, but yeah, you're a Titan. If you want to be, that is."

_And if you want to keep an eye on me,_ he thought as he smiled back at Cyborg. The sharp edges of his new teeth pricked the inside of his lips, but he forced the coming grimace away from his face. Instead, he glanced over the notes and looked up at his old friend. "Who's Thunder Horse?"

* * *

Rivulets of grime and desert dust poured down the skin of the dark figure. Clouds of steam rose around its shadow as gnarled and wrinkled hands patted a towel across the face. Thick knuckles flexed as they tossed the soaked cloth onto the floor. A leathered palm squeaked across glass as the form wiped hot fog from the bathroom mirror.

"Weeks," a scratchy voice mumbled to the mirror. "Weeks to heal this old and broken body." The rumpled face in the reflection smiled back. "But after months of haunting his dreams, it's finally mine."

The fingertips brushed against the image. "Weeks to heal, and I still look as ancient as Azar herself, the old hag. I've been too weak to do anything _but_ heal. But now. . ." Black eyes blinked, and then closed, from the effort as energy danced in the boiling mist around the hunched and wizened body. Deep inside, cell upon cell unzipped the ladders of their DNA and rearranged themselves in new patterns. The entire body reformed itself around the juggled proteins. When the eyes opened once more, they were a deep midnight blue, framed by a thick set of lashes. A dark line curled around from the corner of each eye and kissed the edge of each brow. Smooth-skinned fingers traced the edges of thick lips, and then meandered their way down to discover small, high breasts and a flat abdomen below the sharply defined edges of her ribs.

"Finally," she whispered to herself. "Finally, I am myself again."

She left the sauna of the bathroom behind and wandered into the hallway, savoring the sudden coolness on her newly-formed skin. Tracing the trail of torn and dirty clothing that marked the entrance into the darkened house, she made her way to the wood-lined study that she had seen in this body's mind so many times. The moisture on her feet left behind ghostly footprints that lingered a moment before evaporating back into the air.

The air was heavy with the perfume of sweet tobacco and old cedar. The room was dimly lit by a small lamp near the desk hulking across from the door. She stopped by the collection of photographs on the wall. One in particular caught her attention; one that she knew was especially loved by her body's previous occupant, one of a loving man and his grandchild. She traced the grain in the wooden frame with the edge of her fingernail. The memories of the former owner of the body began to fade from her mind just as her footprints were disappearing behind her.

"Oh, my dear Thunder Horse," she said to the picture. Her voice was so low that it was almost a growl. She licked the edges of her lips. "My better half has been here, hasn't she?"

* * *

"Clones?" Joey asked as he delved further into the report. The paper shook in his hands, and he swallowed hard against the growing desert in his throat. "These people stole Titan tissue samples to make _clones_?"

"That was the general idea, according to what Thunder Horse told Raven," Vic replied. "Read on about the mission where we—"

"Did they get any of mine?"

* * *

A/N:

Hee hee hee… Bart can't wait to induct more Stair Luge Samurai!


	3. Chapter 3

Raven slipped down the hall towards the pyramid of light spilling out of the library door. The stale taste of disorientation in her mouth was leading her here, where she sensed Joseph was once again chasing after elusive sleep.

_Adjusting to a new body is not a simple matter,_ she thought to herself as she remembered her own first days in her new flesh. She paused for a moment and studied the back of her hand in the semidarkness. _I should know. He will need some guidance—_

Her thoughts were cut short by Cyborg's laughter, which had a few snorts thrown in for good measure. It was the kind of laugh he used when he was telling stories about Bart – and only when Bart wasn't around. She heard the odd laugh, and felt that stale flavor rise like bile in the back her throat. _He is trying. Really trying._ _Dear Victor, you always make someone who seems like a stranger to themselves feel welcome. You are, in your own way, a healer, too. _She rested her hand against the wall just outside the library door. _I should know._

The disorientation that Jericho was feeling had eased back somewhat, and Victor launched into a tale about the team's latest adventures. Not wanting to disturb them, she allowed her feet to rise a few inches about the floor and gently floated herself back the way she had come. As she traced her way back to her room, her mind drifted back to other conversations in other libraries …

* * *

_Many years ago…_

"Excellent work as always, Theron. These will make a wonderful addition to the archives." The lady's long white hair grazed the edge of a page as she stooped over to read it. "At this rate, our collection will rival that of the old House of Wisdom itself. Or even the library in Alexandria. "

Theron, his face hidden in the shadow of a gray cloak, inclined his head to her. His words were crisp and slow. "A pleasure as always, my lady Azar, to bring more knowledge of our mother world to you."

Azar brushed her ring-laden hands over the remaining books in the stack. The light from the candles glittered as it reflected off the intricately shaped gold wrapped around her fingers. "And mostly to just me, I suppose. Most of the others are no longer interested. I like to have them, though… and someday, when she's ready, young Raven may like to have them as well."

"She certainly likes to read, that one," Theron replied.

Azar's head lifted slightly, breathing in the air around them as if catching a scent on a non-existent breeze. A small twinkle flashed across her eyes. "Ah, Theron," she said, "she does indeed." She closed the book and set it back on the heavy marble table. "The High Council meets soon. I must go. Please catalog these books as you always do, and I will tend to them later. Farewell, for now, my friend." She swept a finger across the gleaming jewel in her forehead and held her hand out to the young man.

He inclined his head once more in reply as she turned to go. Her staff thumped on the stone floor as she made her way out of the high-ceilinged library. When she was out of sight, he lowered his hood to reveal a smile shining out from an ebony face. He observed a tiny gloved hand waving at him from behind one of the many heavy tapestries covering the walls of the hall.

"I t'ink I see a little bird in here," he said, dropping his formal tone for a more musical one as if he were loosening a bowtie. "We didn't have pretty birds like dat back in Jamaica."

A hooded face followed the hand. Blue eyes shone at him from beneath the tiny cowl. "Hello, Theron," she replied. "You always know I am here."

"Of course, of course," he replied, beckoning her to come forward. "You always come to see the new books. Come and help me."

Her cloak whispered around her as she strode forward. _Most girls her age, _he thought, _they would skip or hop. _Little Raven walked a straight line, one foot in front of the other, no break in the rhythm of her motion. _So serious for a seven-year-old._

She struggled to lift one of the larger books, _Mythology of the Western World_. "More of the Greek gods?"

"I swear, little girl, that book is bigger than you are!" His laugh echoed through the otherwise silent hall and bounced around row upon row of dusty tomes. He lit the half-melted candle in the elaborately carved holder that was suspended over the table. Then he lifted the book with a grunt of his own. "Here, let me put it away. You can write it here in the archive. Your handwriting is better than mine, anyway."

The tip of the long quill danced above her head as she recorded the name of the book in the records. She set down the pen and pointed to the taper whose flame lit up her small face. "In the morning, Coman is taking me to see where they make the candles."

Theron's voice curled around the bookshelf. "I thought that Coman wanted to keep you in the Temple."

"Yes," she said as she hunched her shoulders and twirled a strand of her long hair around her finger. "I know. But he wants me to see how much work it takes to make one of the tapers." She looked down at the desk. "He thinks I use too many candles." She dropped the strand of hair and looked up with a sparkle in her eyes. "But that is fine. I will be someplace else, at least for a little while. And maybe I will get to see Mother for a moment. Do you think I will?"

"Hah, that Coman." Theron shook his head as he rounded the corner to fetch the next book. "There is no current here. How else you gonna read? They won't let you go see the other people here. There are no other little ones. What else you gonna do?"

"Current?"

"Current. Power. Electricity."

"Oh, yes. Azar and Mother both told me about that. People on Earth have it, don't they?"

"Yes, they do. What else they tell you? About Earth?"

"About all the people there. There are a lot more there than here. Mother told me of a great singer of ballads. He had a very strange name. El-Vis. Perhaps you have heard of him?"

Theron held his belly as he guffawed, his laughter rebounding through a hall where mirth was unknown. "Oh, yes, I may have heard of him once or twice."

"And the wars they have, how they are always fighting each other." She sighed. "Then Coman always reminds me," she said while jiggling her head from side to side and lowering the tone of her voice," 'we do not fight here'. Or sing."

"Well, we chant sometimes."

"Yes, but it is just not quite the same thing, somehow."

His hand hovered over her tiny head as if to comfort her, but he pulled it back as he remembers the decree about touching this particular child. _Foolish rule, _he thought. _How can anyone survive without even a friendly hand on their shoulder?_

"I brought this for you, little bird," Theron said, pulling a thin book from underneath his cloak. "This is called a _magazine_. Like a book, but it talks about many different t'ings. And they make them, each month. Each month, something different, but under the same name."

The bright yellow borders of the cover fairly glowed; she had never seen such colors in an illustration before! She read the title aloud. "Nation… na-tion-_al_… geo… geographic. How did they paint these?" There was a tremor in her voice. "They look so real!"

Theron laughed gently. "They _are_ real, little sister. They are photographs."

"Pho-to-graphs? These were not painted?"

"No, little one. They use a camera, a box that captures the image and burns it onto film. Then they put the picture on paper from the film."

"Film," she repeated as her hungry fingers turned the crisp pages. Her eyes devoured picture after picture, running her tiny child's fingernails over the words. "Camera. _Pho_-to-graph." The sound of her voice quivered. "Azar told me today that next week… next week she will start teaching me how to _travel_. She says I will be able to go from one place to another without moving, like everyone else."

"Really, now," he said as he shelved the last book. He leaned against the shelf and crossed his arms. "If you are supposed to stay in the Temple, where they gonna let you travel to?"

She shrugged. "I do not know." Her eyes shifted from left to right. "Do you think… do think someday I might travel to Earth? See other children, like me?" She looked down at the magazine once again. She waved her hand over the pages. "Or do you think this is all I will see?"

"I don't know, child, I don't know." He shrugged. "Who can tell what will happen? But it is a good thing to learn about where we come from, yes?"

"Yes," she said softly, casting her eyes back down to the picture in front of her.

"Don't read the words off the page, now," he chuckled as he left her to pore over the small book.

She finally took her eyes off the pictures long enough to read some of the words. _So this is Earth. _Her mind consumed sentence after sentence, seeing words that it did not recognize. She slowly sounded out each one, savoring the feel of them between her teeth, as if she were feasting on some new wild fruit, fruit that was juicy and sweet on her tongue. Tiny paragraphs below the pictures told her the names of these exotic places: Thailand, Congo, New York, Manhattan, Buenos Aires and Antarctica.

"Hello, Earth," she sang softly to the people in the photographs. "Hello."

She studied the map, having learned to love the few maps that were housed in the Azarathian library, showing the names of mysterious places with names like Azar Goshnasp, Nanda Parbat and Avalon. According to the inscription, this was a sphere projected onto a flat page. _It is so large, _she thought to herself. _So this is our mother world. So many cities…which did Mother live in before she came here?_

"Natural Disaster Averted," announced one title. "Justice League – 1; Volcano – 0."

"The Justice League," she whispered into the silence around her. "Who are they?"

* * *

Raven sank down into her own bed and pulled the covers over her happy but weary body as the memory faded. A small wave of furry happiness washed over her brain as she felt the thoughts of another try to wend their way into her mind.

"Good night, beloved," she whispered as she placed a set of earphones over her head and listened to the soft lullaby that streamed from them. The connection to Gar's dream faded as she fell into her own.

* * *

Raven was there again. The future. Or, at least, the version that they had visited only months before. The sour scent of the soupy fog and the bristly aftertaste of sheer hopelessness hanging over the Tower in her dreams were just like the one she remembered from their strange venture into the future, where they had met older versions of themselves. The thought of what they could become in the future had haunted them since.

Raven was standing there, staring out into the grayness, remembering the feeling of life with no brightness just across the bay. The emptiness made her feel queasy, even now. She retraced the steps of memory into the Hall of Mentors, populated by soulless crumbling statues, whose significance was still unknown to them, a puzzle they tried to figure out in bits and pieces when they felt strong enough to talk about what they had seen.

Then there was once again that rush of air and stench of brimstone that made her cringe, knowing that it was the same scent that emanated from her own dimensional travel. But each time she remembered the acrid odor being stronger than it was in real life; the smoke made her eyes water. Facing their own dark mirrors, her friends had been filled with confusion, confusion and fear as the future Kon-El's powers hurled them away from the tower, separating them so that each older Titan could track down their younger opposite.

Looking through the eyes of memory, she felt herself screaming at the pale copy of herself to leave Starfire alone, remembered the chill that had spread out from Dark Raven to cover the landscape. And as their soul-selves arose from each of them, as they had each time she remembered the battle, Raven wondered, _What happened to us? To me? So pale, so empty of love, what happened to make me want to attack anyone?_

_And her face… she has my old face, my old eyes, my blue ones… she looks like I used to. Before I—before we—died._

Even with that mystery puzzling her, she steeled herself for the memory of the collision between the two great bird-shaped shadows, taking a step back from the freight train barreling through her mind and body as the souls briefly merged, then pulled themselves together as both she and the Dark version of herself collapsed in exhaustion and pain. Darkness overcame them both, as it always did in this particular dream.

She slipped away into another dream, one full of lime-colored penguins and talking salads.

* * *

A/N: Most of the information here is pure speculation on my part, expanded from Marv Wolfman's back-story of Raven found in the miniseries "Tales of the New Teen Titans" #2, which put the spotlight on Raven.

Coman was the leader of the High Council on Azarath. Where Azar was in charge of spiritual matters, he was in charge of making the trains run on time, so to speak. After Azar died, he was still in charge of the whole place. While Arella took over her daughter's education when the high priestess passed away, it is my theory that he had a hand in how that education was conducted. I believe he had a soft spot in his heart for Arella – like the daughter he never had – but just could not handle her daughter. Personally, I don't think he was good with kids.

Theron is a two-panel character that showed up in the "Tales of the New Teen Titans" mini that told us the story of Raven's childhood. He brought a dying bird to Raven and asked her to save it. We don't really know more than that about Theron. I decided to take his character and give him a little bit of a back-story. I write him as a former Rastafarian from Jamaica, who left Earth rather recently to be with a group of pacifists that he thought more closely reflected his ideals. In the panel where Raven sets the now-cured bird free, Theron is shown smiling at the bird in flight. He seems to be one of the few who were not afraid to talk to Raven. They called each other by name, so I assume that they knew each other already. I wanted to explore her possible relationships with others in Azarath, and he seemed a likely candidate.

Not only that, I figure she had to learn what she already knew about modern Earth (and the Justice League and other superheroes) from _somewhere_.

The Field Trip to the Future was in the Geoff Johns era of Teen Titans, issues 17 – 19. It took place not too long before the start of _Twilight Child_, which itself takes place right after issue 20.


	4. Chapter 4

Gar's eyes burned a hole in the bundle of wrinkled paper in his clammy hands. The words scratched across his pupils as he read them for the tenth time, as if re-reading them would change their meaning. He drew his hands across his eyes before stuffing the report back into the messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He leaned against the oak tree that shaded the entrance to the labs.

"So, no little Gar's running around any time soon," he whispered to the tree.

A strange, hollow bubble floated in his gut as his brain tried to process what he had read. Getting poked and prodded was never fun and never something he would volunteer for. He had some answers to his questions now, but the knot in his belly was doing somersaults.

"Honey, are you all right?" A soft Georgia accent drifted across his reverie. He looked up to see the sun reflecting off the sunglasses of Lenina Sommers, the same doctor that had overseen his time in the hyperbaric chamber not long before. She had taken care of them when they had escaped from the man that turned out to be Raven's great-grandfather. She'd also been spending a lot of time with Cyborg in their off-hours.

"Oh, hi, Dr. Sommers," he replied, clearing his head with a shake. "Yeah, I'm okay, I guess. I—"

"Don't know how to feel about the results?"

His mouth twisted. "It's kinda private. I really don't want to talk about it—"

"With a lady doctor?" She planted her palms on her hips and leaned forward. "Darlin', who do think wrote the report? Hyperbaric medicine is only one of my specialties. And I wanted to make sure your case was handled right. And kept private." She rested a hand on his shoulder. "You're a good man, going through this, trying to protect our girl. _Good_ man. I know this whole shindig was embarrassing, but at least you found out you what you needed to know. That little lady really loves you, you know. I could tell that the last time you two were here. I think I knew before _you_ knew." She chuckled softly. "And I know she'll love you no matter what that piece of paper says." She pointed a brightly polished finger at his messenger bag.

His smile was weak. "I know. I know she does. I just don't know whether to be… whether to be sad or relieved." He shrugged. "I like kids. I always talk it up about having them, but I never really thought that I couldn't have them. Never gave it any serious thought, you know? I was always so _busy_. But knowing that my powers take that choice away—"

She shook her head. "No, no, honey, that's _not_ what we said. We said that the effect of your powers was _inconclusive_. The problem was the fever, sweetie. The one you got when that monkey first bit you when you were just a little child. The fever with sakutia is just like the fever with the mumps, and it did what mumps do to people sometimes. We just didn't know its effects before because you're the only one that's ever survived it." She removed her sunglasses and looked him straight in the eye. Her tone was low and firm. "For better or for worse, baby, the fever shut that part of your system down. And that'll never heal."

"And we don't know yet about… about if I could… the sakutia…"

"We won't know about _that_ for a few days. Still testing on that one, hon. Just hang in there and hold your horses until we know for sure, okay?"

A blush crept up his face before he continued. "How… how do I tell her?"

"You'll find a way, baby. But, you know, if having kids is really that important to you, you two will work it out when the time comes. It's a little soon, yet. If it ain't on your list in the first place, then you've got plenty of other things to get yourselves in trouble over. _Lots_ of people lose that choice. But then they realize later that the good Lord has a reason. There's a reason for every thing that looks bad to us. Sometimes we gotta wait for the good part, sometimes a long time. But it comes." She slid her sunglasses back onto her face with an easy grace. She beamed at him with a wide smile. "But, for what it's worth, Mr. Logan, you two _would_ be the coolest parents on the planet." She gave him a quick, tight hug. "Now, give that to your sweetie for me, hon."

As she walked away, he called after her. "And what about Vic?"

She turned for a moment and looked at him over the rims of her glasses. "I deliver Mr. Stone's hugs personally, baby."

* * *

Back in the Wolfman-Perez days, Gar flirted with any female he could find. Part of his flirting concerned his bragging about all the kids "they" would have together. 


	5. Chapter 5

_In the Azarath of the past…_

The tiny blue figure's face continued to hover over the glossy pages of the mag-a-zine long after the echoes of Theron's footsteps had faded away. She pored over the pho-to-graphs and whispered the text to herself, over and over, dashing to the massive codex of English words that presided over the front of the great hall to learn about all of the new words in the strange new book. Savoring each new word like a juicy morsel, her mind feasted on Theron's gift.

She did not look up until one of the lights on top of the desk winked out; the once tall taper was now just a smoking knob of wax. She frowned for a moment, knowing that Coman would reproach her for it. She could smell the sharpness of the extinguished flame as she reflected on what she had read.

_There are others like me, special ones, _she thought. _They are not like the others around them. But they go out… they do _good_ things. They do not stay in a temple all the day and all the night and get scolded for using too much light…_

It had never occurred to her before this that there might be something to do with her powers other than serve in a temple, other than be under the strict supervision of elders, other than slip into the cavernous library from time to time to have space in which to think. As she closed the small book – no, _magazine_ – and tucked it between two musty tomes on a shelf that had not been dusted in years, she thought about the picture of the man in the red cape. He was the one they called Superman – _can that truly be his name? – _and he was flying high in the deep blue sky. No one seemed to be telling him where to be or how to act or that he could not laugh or sing. The idea that someone could possibly have such… such _freedom_... sank into her heart like a seed into fertile soil.

Such knowledge was worth any rebuke that Coman could give her.

* * *

Joe pulled the hood up over his head. Even the soft fleece scratched his cheek. He knew that the sun would be tough on his new albino skin, but he had not guessed that it would be quite this unforgiving. He raised the water bottle to his lips again – his third bottle of the morning – and rested his other hand in the sweatshirt's pocket, away from the burning eye in the sky above him. He wanted to kick off his shoes, ill-fitting sneakers borrowed from Bart, squish his toes into the wet sand and feel the coarse grains under his bare feet. But even several layers of sunscreen couldn't protect his paleness, so he was reluctant to set his feet free. _Maybe tonight, when the moon is out, maybe she'll walk with me, _he thought. Disoriented, he stared over the bay at the Golden Gate Bridge; he was unable to shake the feeling that the tower was at the wrong end of the world.

A stiff breeze whipped the hood from his face. "Hi, Bart," he said to the blur that soon resolved itself into the yellow-eyed young man that had been his near-constant companion since he had returned to the tower. Joe tugged his hood back into place.

"You looked awful lonely out here by yourself," Bart replied. "Thought you could use some company. Everybody else is busy. Raven's filling her daily meditation quota. Gar's out, uhhhh, well, he's just out. Vic asked me to ask you if you wanted to go to the mall so we could get some clothes that fit you better."

Joe frowned, unsure of what he wanted to share with his unwanted escort. He really wanted to talk to _her_ about so many things, among them just how awkward he felt in the body of someone who wanted to hurt her and use her. He shivered, even in the bright warmth of the sun. He did want to talk to her, be held by her, tell her all that had happened to him in his unseen prison for all those years, and tell her how happy he had been with the _image_ of her. But he had barely seen her for more than a few minutes at a time since his odd resurrection. He'd been alone with her for a scant moment or two. It hadn't been enough time to say anything of consequence.

Bart had a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck. He proceeded to place them in front of his eyes and scan the shore.

"Sometimes people use those quarter-telescope-thingies at the pier to get a look at the island," Bart explained. "Sometimes I like to wave back."

He stood still while he watched the pier. Joe just kept walking, hoping that Bart would take the hint that he wanted to be alone.

"Oh, wow," Bart said. "She's there again today."

Joe stopped and turned around. "Who?"

"This lady. I saw her there a couple of days ago, near the end of the pier. She just stands and stares. I thought she was just someone that had nothing better to do at first. But it's weird. She just _stands_ there. Oooooh, no, wait."

"What?"

"Somebody's talking to her. Hey, it's Gar!"

"Gar's back?" Joe asked out loud. _Damn, _he thought to himself. _Back already. I've lost another chance to--_

"Yeah," Bart said as he hunched down and squinted into the binoculars again. "Hey, let's go see…" With a blur, Kid Flash launched himself across the water, leaving a puzzled Jericho behind.

* * *

Bart bounced onto the pier, shaking the water from his yellow boots before joining Beast Boy, who was already having a conversation with the woman in the brown cloak.

"You're an old friend of Raven's?" Gar asked her.

"No, I have never met my lady." She bowed her head as she continued, "I am but her humble servant, the Azar who took her place. And who is the lad?"

"Kid Flash," Bart replied as he scratched his head. "I don't remember her ever saying she had _servants_. I thought everyone she knew back on Azarath was gone. Including Azar."

"Me too," Gar said, his voice flat. _The last thing I need is some shyster trying to take advantage of her. _He crossed his arms and lowered his eyebrows studying the woman.

"Gone?" she asked as her eyes grew wide. "Azarath, destroyed?" She sat down on the bench behind her, as if her knees could no longer support her. "We lost contact with them so long ago – I thought they were just isolating themselves. I – I thought that their Azar might have gone into the West – she was ancient when I was but a girl." She buried her head in the massive sleeves of her cloak for a moment. When the fabric shifted, Gar thought he could see speckles of sunlight being reflected back at him, as if she were wearing some kind of metal underneath. A moment later, she sat up straight. She wiped tears from her bright green eyes. "A warrior only mourns in times of leisure, and I do not have the time now." She looked up at Gar. "Please believe me when I say I come here in peace, to discover the fate of the one in whose place I serve."

Bart tugged on Gar's sleeve. "Can you excuse us for a minute, lady?"

She nodded as Bart pulled Gar away a few feet. "Hey," he whispered. "Raven's always had questions about where Azarath came from. This lady's not from there, but she seems to know about it. Maybe, if 'Azar' over there isn't just being ducky, she can help her out."

"What if she's dangerous? We can't just take some strange person to the tower just because she claims to know Raven."

Bart rubbed his chin. "She _did_ say she was a warrior, and it is a little weird to hear she knows about a temple full of pacifists. But if she can tell Rave some stuff about herself, maybe it'll help her, y'know, be… be…"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, I get where you're going. You think it's worth the risk?"

Bart leaned back so he could look back at Azar, who was again staring across the bay at the tower. "Raven can probably tell if she's lying or nutzo or anything." He leaned back toward Gar. "Besides, we can take her. So, yeah, I think it is. One thing, though. Keep her away from Joey."

"Huh?"

Bart rolled his eyes. "Look, if there really is a prophecy about ol' Sebastian marrying her, this lady might recognize him and be _really pissed off_ at someone who might hurt Raven. _She_ might hurt _him_. Duh."

"I hadn't thought of that," Gar said. He turned around to see the tower ferry headed toward the pier, piloted by a lean figure in a fleece hood and sunglasses. "But I think we're too late for that."

Bart and Gar both tensed up as Joey secured the ferry at the pier. They studied Azar's every move as her gaze followed him as he approached the group.

"Everything okay here?" he asked.

"Sure," Gar began, still cautious of the woman's reaction. So far, she had not made any sudden moves. "Joey, do you ever remember Raven mentioning—"

"I am Azar," she said, striding across the pier towards him. Gar's thoughts raced as to exactly which animal would take her down the fastest, but she stopped just a few feet away from him. "Are you another friend of my lady's?"

Bart whispered in Gar's ear. "I don't think she recognizes him. That's weird."

"Maybe the prophecy doesn't include a mug shot," Gar replied. "Just keep your eye on her."

Bart nodded. "Hey," he chirped. "Let's take the ferry back to the tower so uh, Azar can talk to Raven. And maybe break out some Ben and Jerry's while we're at it." He looked up at her and squinted, deep in thought. "I figure you're a Cherry Garcia." He turned to Joey. "And you're Chubby Hubby, all the way. Am I right? Am I right?"

As the ferry pulled away from the pier, Gar stood back a few feet from the mysterious young woman. She peered over Jericho's shoulder, asking him questions about the navigational systems.

"So, how'd it go?" Bart's voice, barely audible in the wind blowing across the floating platform, broke into his vigil.

"How did _what_ go?"

"You know, the thing. The, uh, the test. Did it go okay?"

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

"C'mon, just a hint? I wanna know if I'm gonna be Uncle Bart some day."

"Give it a rest," Gar barked.

"But I just –"

"—wanted to butt in where you don't belong. Just drop it. I've got other things to think about right now."


	6. Chapter 6

_In the Azarath of the past…_

From the raised dais upon which she sat, Azar commanded a full view of the council chamber. Her bones creaked as she shifted in the chair, which was adorned with the carvings of great eagles. She had been in the chair year after year for council after council, and she had every whorl and feather of it memorized. Even though her hand shook as it clasped the long gem-tipped staff, her badge of office, her voice was still strong in replying to the Chief Magistrate's questions with some of her own.

"Do you forget the very intention of this great temple?" she asked. "Our purpose from the very beginning—"

"We have not forgotten our purpose, Azar," Coman replied with an icy calm. "With all great respect and veneration, O goddess, we sometimes wonder if _you_ have forgotten. If we are to control the child, then why teach her the path by which she may leave us?"

Murmurs rolled through the council chamber as Azar sighed to herself. _Great Lady Sophia_, she muttered to herself. _How they continually question their own intentions! They would try the patience of the Buddha himself._

She grasped her staff more tightly, even though her knuckles rippled with pain and stiffness as she did so. "_Control_, Coman? That word carries the stench of violence with it, my friend."

"_Protect_, if you prefer," he sniffed. He folded his sleeves together, hiding his hands as he often did in his frostier-than-thou moments. "It is all the same to me. But at least while she is here, she will not face hunger or cold or thirst or any number of things that would wrest away the calm that keeps her darker side under her command."

"What you say is true, Coman. At the same time, you might well ask," she replied, sweeping her gaze across all the faces at the council table, hoping to find at least one ally among them, "why any of us have this knowledge. Why did we teach Arella, then, when we brought her here, how to leave, when our code decrees that once someone renounces the Temple, they can never return? Why give her that capability?"

The small echo of her question died in the shadowy corners of the room. When no one answered, she continued. "Even the simplest acolytes know the answer. Because confining someone against their will is one of the _worst_ forms of violence. It violates the very foundation of our philosophy."

"But the child is different—" Coman began.

Azar rapped the tip of her staff against the floor. "_The child_ has a name, old friend." If she had been able to breathe more deeply, she would have hissed…_but no, I must remain in control here. _"Please refer to her by it. _Raven_ is a person in her own right. Yes, we enfold her and care for her now. She _is_ but a child. Unlike the rest of us, she was born here." She pointed a shaking finger at each member of the council. "You, and you, and you, _all_ of you have a choice to be here or to leave. For now, she does not. If we hold her against her will, then truly our evil natures have returned to us. When she comes of age, I will no longer be with you." For the grimaces that this pronouncement produced, for the grimaces that it _always_ produced when she pointed it out, she softened her voice. "Coman, I expect you to allow her the same choice that we have always had, to stay or to go."

A junior councilman to the right of Coman spoke up. "Venerable one, you speak as if everyone across the worlds has a right to such knowledge. I would be remiss if I did not add that _only_ the priests and priestesses of Temple Azarath even have access to the mysteries of our form of travel. We did not share this with Azar-Noush or the other temples—"

Coman cut him off with a wave of his hand. "We agreed to no longer speak of the other temples, Andreus. As far as Raven is concerned, we are the _only_ Temple, and our Eternal Flame is the only altar to the _true_ Azar, goddess of fire." He bowed slightly in Azar's direction.

Azar closed her eyes for a moment and listened to her heart thumping its slow and laborious beat. Every few moments, it halted for a quarter of a breath, as if it were not sure if it wanted to continue. "But I am not that immortal goddess," she sighed in a whisper that could only be heard by the attendants flanking her throne like chair. She knew they had heard her whisper the same thing over and over for many years, and out of respect for her they had remained silent. _I do not long how much longer this body will last, my dear little Raven,_ she mused. _I must ensure that you are able to fulfill our precious plans, while I am still able_. _And not next week. Today._

Andreus would not let it go. "Should we give such knowledge into the hands of our _enemy_? The one who nearly destroyed the Temple with an earthquake the night of her birth? The one who slew my brother?"

"We all mourn the death of Juris," Azar replied. "But it was his own attempt to spirit away a helpless infant that caused his demise—"

"His murder! By her father, by that devil—"

Coman held up his hands. "Peace! Do not utter his name in this Temple, Andreus. You forget yourself." He rested a palm on the man's shoulder. "We share your pain. Juris was one of the founders of this Temple, and he was a valued member of this council. We have prayed for his soul many times over the years."

Azar nodded. Juris, the one who understood their mission the least, had almost been the ruin of it all. She remembered the day that he had taken Raven, then just a few weeks old, from her cradle and attempted to leave the Temple with her. He had claimed that he was going to care for her beyond The Great Door, beyond the devil-father's reach, but they all had known his true intention. All were sure that the great blood-red light that turned him into a pile of cinders had been sent by the demon himself, to protect the only child of his that had lived past birth. It was that very day that Azar had taken Raven into her own custody. It was also the day that Coman had lost any feelings of attachment that he had had for the child.

"Yes," she said at last. "But Raven is not the enemy. I want all of you to remember that. If you remember nothing else, remember that. She is one of us. It was given to me to train her in our ways. In _all _our ways. She will be taught what she needs to know. And once learned, it cannot be unlearned." Azar turned to the attendant behind her and softly said, "Find young Raven and direct her to my quarters, Rinzen. You may find her in the library." As Rinzen turned to go, she took the arm of her other attendant and motioned for him to help her stand. She rapped her staff on the marbled floor once more before walking out as gracefully as she could manage. "This is my final word on the matter."

* * *

Slade Wilson shook the jungle debris out of his hair as he stepped out of the transporter on the old Injustice Gang satellite. After a couple of days on the Serengeti Plain, his lungs felt assaulted by the dry smoky atmosphere of the bar. A black and blue tipped butterfly that had hitched a ride on his shoulder flitted away into the chamber. It flew ahead of him as he made his way to the bar, where the ever-present Bob was wiping down shot glasses.

Slade perched on a stool and noted the relative emptiness of the game room. Being so high above the Earth, the bar observed no particular time zone. People came and went as their individual whims dictated, meaning that it was busy or dead at any given hour of the day. It was kind of like Las Vegas without the slot machines and the free booze. And Bob was always there, no matter when Slade came or went. He wondered vaguely if the bartender ever slept. _World's newest super-villain,_ Slade thought. _Insomnia Man._

Without asking what he needed, Bob slid a mug of beer in front of the mercenary. Before Slade could wrap his hand around the brew, his winged hitchhiker landed on the rim. He lifted a finger to flick it away, and then he lowered it; he felt no reason to disturb its peace. He knew Bob was staring at his disheveled hair and the stubbly beginnings of a beard on his jaw line, and his torn shirt; but he also knew that the man had tended bar here long enough to know better than to ask too many questions. As it was, he appreciated Bob's silent company while he mulled over the events of the past few days. He felt more at peace now than he had felt in a long time, as if some gaping wound in his mind had been bandaged over and was beginning to heal. He was beginning to think that young Raven had done more than just dump him in the middle of Africa. He had gone to the Tower to claim revenge against his son for the death of Wintergreen, but he had come away with something completely different.

He'd spent the time since just focusing on surviving in that patch of wilderness, which he knew like the back of his hand. He knew that _she_ knew he knew it that well. Separated from most of humanity but hardly alone – a deluded pack of hyenas had nearly mistaken him for a midnight snack – he had also felt more alive, more awake than he since before Wintergreen's brutal death. He'd had his transporter transponder with him all along, but somehow he hadn't wanted to make use of it until today. He had saved any reaction to what had happened at the Tower for later. And now, later had arrived.

The butterfly sailed away from the mug. He picked it up and braced himself for the normal taste of warm swill, but mercifully enough it was cold and refreshing. He took another sip and rested it back on the worn and splintered wood.

_Raven,_ he thought, _I knew you were powerful. But I never figured you for the devious type. Disarmed me without so much as throwing a punch._ He raised his mug slightly, as if to toast the play she had made against him. _I'll have to remember that._

He sorted through the memories of the past few days: buying the intel from the Calculator about his son's condition; infiltrating Titans' Tower; discovering that Joe was no longer imprisoned; finding Gar Logan unconscious on the floor of the lab; tracking down another intruder only to find it was that damn Blood kid again … and that his son was in possession of said kid's body. And then wanting so much to avenge his friend that Joe had murdered, murdered using Slade's own hands.

Joe. The memory of his son's face flooded his mind. Those bright green eyes and that curly blond hair had been destroyed years ago, but his spirit had somehow remained behind. He had never been extremely close to his son, but they had enjoyed a kind of bond. All those letters that Joe had written over the years had become their lifeline, and Slade missed the times that he had read them aloud to Wintergreen. Most of what he knew about Raven had come from those pages. Joe had described his friendship with her: how she had accepted him more than any of the other Titans; how she had tried to help him as much has he had helped her; how despite everything she'd gone through in her short life she was still the gentlest soul his son had ever known.

_I always wondered why those two never hooked up_, he thought. The hidden matchmaker that lurks in the depths of everyone's heart woke up. _Now that they're both back, I wonder—_

The thought abruptly left him, only to be replaced with the image of a heavy book on a darkened altar. It was the same book that he had found in Brother Blood's Temple when the cult leader had first resurrected Raven. The book contained a very disturbing prophecy, a prophecy about a child. As he recalled Jericho's current "residence", he slapped his forehead with sudden violence. His newly found peace was shattered. _I can't believe what I was just thinking._

"Everything all right, sir?" Bob asked.

"No. Yeah. Sure, Bob. Gotta run. Just put it on my tab, would you?"

On his way to the satellite's transportation chamber, he spied the butterfly, which was flirting with a faded whiskey ad that was peeling away from the wall. "Well, Wintergreen," he said to it, "are you coming?"

The black and blue winged insect landed on his shoulder as he began to dissolve.

* * *

A/N:

Juris is indeed a character from Raven's past. Resenting the fact that things in Azarath had changed because Raven had been brought to the Temple, he did try to cast her out the Great Door, which led to this huge psychedelic place full of planets and weird moving stairways that eventually led to Trigon's world. The intimation was that he would cast her out the door – it was hard to tell from his blathering at the time whether she would actually die or if he was somehow going to take care of her in that very odd place. A light did indeed come through the door and fry him, leaving baby Raven alive on a pile of his cinders. The door shut on its own. It was never shown that Trigon actually killed him, but it was widely assumed that it was Trigon who fried him. This all happened in the mini "Tales of the New Teen Titans #2" that tells Raven's back-story. I took a lot of details about Azarath for this story from that particular comic. I'll be adding my own details here and there that should mesh with the framework that Marv Wolfman set up for Azarath.

In that comic, Coman was pretty upset about the death of Juris: "Juris was the first to die. How many more will follow?"

I totally made up Andreus, but I figured Juris might have a brother or someone else that was as upset as Coman but who couldn't handle it as well.

Poor Slade. He really misses Wintergreen. His experiences have made him a little flaky, haven't they? I think it broke his heart that his son, while possessing his body, killed his best friend. There's no one aspect of that sentence that is pretty.


	7. Chapter 7

_In the Azarath of the past…_

While she waited on her teacher to emerge from her private chambers, Raven studied the tapestries adorning the hallway. She had had many chances to study them over the years, as she spent a lot of her time waiting on her teacher while Azar saw to her other myriad duties as spiritual leader of Temple Azarath.

She sensed a slight agitation slipping through the great carved door. _She must have been talking to Coman again_, Raven thought to herself. She reached up with one small finger and traced the outline of one of the figures on the tapestry, an elephant wearing a turban bedecked with pearls and rubies.

"Hello, Lord Ganesha," she said to the embroidered animal. She had seen a pho-to-graph of one in the mag-a-zine that Theron had given her. She had been surprised to see that not all elephants wore hats. _But I suppose not all elephants are devas of Wisdom, either,_ she thought.

Being the lowest figure on the tapestry, Ganesha was the closest one to her. She traced a golden thread up from his head to the next figure, a tall lady swathed in a cloud-white gown. On her head was a golden helmet and in her hand a staff around which a great serpent twined himself. "Athena," she whispered to herself as she continued to trace the golden thread that connected her to the next form. She had to balance on the balls of her feet to reach this one, a bright flame with brilliant eyes that stared out at her, eyes that seemed to follow her whenever she passed by this door. "Rama Kushna," she said, almost singing the words now. Slightly higher than that, enough that she had to stand on her toes to reach it, was another lady, this one enfolded in robes as blue as her own. Angelic wings spread from her shoulders and blended into Rama Kushna's flame. "Sophia," she sang softly to the glistening threads that outlined the figure.

The topmost figure was just out of reach. A lovely woman, with eyes shaped like the almonds that grew in the arboretum and wearing bright robes layered one over the other, meditated among leaves of other plants that Raven could not name. The outermost robe was flocked with blooms, but she could not tell what kind of flowers they were. She hopped and stretched, but still she could not reach the lady at the top. She jumped a little higher, sweeping her hand above her with determination, and found the tapestry with her finger at last… only to bring it crashing down on top of her. The heavy door swung open just as she landed on her face, buried under the heavy fabric and sneezing at the dust that had puffed up from the upper edge that she had worked so hard to reach.

She was afraid to move as strong hands picked up the tapestry and revealed her to the light. She saw Rinzen's ever-placid face peering at her for a moment before he turned to re-hang the drapery on the wall. Azar gazed down at her student with weary eyes.

"Getting wrapped up in your studies again, I see," she observed as Raven picked herself up and shook the dust off her cloak. "Rinzen, before you hang it up again—" she began. It was in her hands before she could finish her sentence. "Here is the one you wanted to see. What do you think of her, now?"

Raven's tiny finger shook a little as it finished its journey and stroked the small flowers on the lady's robe. Miniature orchids. She had once seen her old nursemaid, Galya, tending them in one of Azarath's many greenhouses. "The others are all gods of wisdom. I have learned about them all, now," she replied softly. "But I do not know this one. Who is she?"

"Kuan Yin," Azar answered. "Goddess of Mercy." She nodded to her student, and then handed it back to Rinzen. "From the land of China, on the Homeworld. Of course, to us, all of these are but symbols of wisdom and not gods that we worship. Can you tell me why she would be here, with these others?"

No one but Azar ever asked her what she thought. Raven chewed her lower lip as she thought for a moment. She wanted to give a proper answer to the gift of a question. "Because… because mercy is more important than wisdom?"

Azar nodded. "Close, but not quite. It means that _wisdom must be tempered with mercy_, my little one. But this is something you will learn over time. As you grow, you should find both wisdom and mercy within your reach." She rested a hand on Raven's narrow shoulder. "We will learn more of them later. For now, we must walk a bit, in order to begin your next lesson."

As they made their way down the long stone-faced hallway, the child had to slow her steps down to keep pace with the halting steps of the woman that towered over her.

"Like many of your lessons, what I am about to teach you is an ancient mystery," Azar began. "And it is a very powerful skill. We have kept this secret within the Temple Azarath over these many centuries. It is only to be passed from teacher to pupil. It is never to be written down. Housed in the wrong mind, this knowledge would be dangerous indeed."

They passed other tapestries as they walked down the hall. These were covered with strange knots and curves that seemed to turn in upon themselves. Raven had tried to trace them once, while she was waiting in the hallway during one of Azar and Coman's many debates, but she had the circles to be fantastic mazes in which her fingertips always got lost. Some of them even had serpents twining about the borders, and these twisted beasts were attempting to swallow their own tails. Raven was never sure if these serpents were the evil ones that haunted the Eden of the Homeworld – she had read the Christian Bible that was housed in the library -- or if they were the symbols of wisdom spoken of by some of the Temple Priests.

"We are baptized in peace," Azar continued. "We dwell in the light of our pacifism. Our only defense against the violence of others is our ability to escape them before the strike lands."

At the end of the hall, they began descending the great staircase leading from Azar's private quarters and into the Square of the Font of Wisdom. A spray of water danced from the gleaming fountain, its white noise nearly drowning out the leader's teaching. "You have already learnt the lessons of a novitiate of the Temple, child. You are now to learn a skill that should not be taught to the uninitiated. They might have the knowledge to slip through the dimensions to their destination, but they will not have the wisdom to use the skill with respect to others. Once you have completed this training, no longer will locks or doors or wood or stone or great distance be a barrier between you and what you seek. What stealthy violence one could commit with this talent, if one did not have wisdom and mercy and compassion where others are concerned."

_That should be an easy promise to keep_, Raven thought to herself. _Who can I tell that does not already know this?_ She could think of no one else in Azarath who did not already know this particular secret.

On the far side of the Square, they turned down the avenue that passed by the Eternal Flame sanctuary. As they passed that way, Raven peered sideways without allowing her hood to turn – a trick she had learned long ago after the exaggerated movements of the bird's beak at its tip earned her a scolding from Coman when she was supposed to be focused straight ahead. She hoped to catch a glimpse of her mother taking her turn at the round-the-clock vigil at the Flame, but she was not there.

As they neared the gate of the temple complex proper, Azar continued her lesson. "All dimensions that we have discussed before are at your disposal to reach your destination. All but one special dimension. Can you tell me which one that might be?"

Raven fought the urge to scratch her chin as she thought, trying to remember her previous lessons on the Known Dimensions. There was one very different from the rest… "The fourth? Time?"

"Correct!" Azar replied. "The temporal dimension is forbidden. The threads of the past have been woven already and must not be disturbed. The future must remain unknown to us. We must avoid disturbing _that_ dimension, whatever the cost."

As they exited the gate, Raven asked, "Why are we going so far away from the Temple?"

Azar allowed herself a slight smile as she replied, "So I can teach you how to go home."

* * *

_My Dearest Dawn Child,_

_It seems so long since we have seen you! Karen is always asking when you are coming back for a visit, and Old Bill watches the door for you every day. I know that your school is starting soon. Do you think you would have time to visit your "elders" before you plunge into the ocean of academia once more? We have plenty of room. You could bring your young buck, too, if he wanted to come. (I have to find out what his intentions for my cousin are, you know.) If more of your friends wanted to come, we could camp down in the canyon and have a bonfire. Karen could make her famous campfire potatoes, and I could bore you with my old ghost stories. Be sure to bring your friend Joseph. I am sure that some fresh air and Karen's six-egg omelettes would cheer him right up._

Raven smiled as she read the latest email from her cousin. From her last stay with him, she knew that he was convinced that his wife's cooking could cure any ailment. His letters always made her smile, especially after her daily meditation.

_On a more serious note, I would like to have a talk with you about the stories you told me about yourself, if you are up for it. I am puzzled greatly by the connection you told me between you and him whose name I will not write here. How a parent could control the spirit of a child like that… in my experience, souls don't work that way. My Lakota heart tells me another story. I thought that—_

A flurry of agitation was rolling down the hall towards her bedroom. She set the printout aside and opened the door and came face to face with Garfield's knuckles, poised to rap on the door.

"Beloved?" she asked the knuckles. She took his hand into her own and pulled him into the room. He gathered her up in his arms as he crossed the threshold and hugged her tightly. She felt an immense sadness mixed in with his usual sweet-and-tart air. "You are disturbed? What—"

He interrupted her with a light kiss on the cheek. "Let's talk about the tests later, babe, all right? Not all the results are in yet. There's something a little more urgent I need to tell you first."

"Something –" she began. She extended her awareness from beyond them and sensed that others were in the tower. And one that she did not recognize. She tilted her head to the side. "There is someone else here."

"Just listen to this, sweets, and tell me if this sounds familiar to you at all."

* * *

"Where did that book come from?" Bart asked. "What ya got under that cloak, a Bag of Holding or something?"

The young woman rested a hand on the great leather-bound volume that she had just placed on the kitchen table. "I am able to carry a great many things with me that are not immediately visible. Has your technology not achieved this yet?"

"Nah," Bart replied as he set a small plate in front of her. "But I could sure use a Portable Hole, if you've got one. Here you go. I'm all out of ice cream, but I thought you could use a P.B. and J. You've been standing out there for a long time."

Azar picked up the bread and sniffed it. After a slight shrug she took a bite. She started to speak, but lifted an eyebrow when she failed to open her mouth all the way.

"And here's the milk! How could I forget the milk! Does young Azars good. I bet you didn't have anything that sticks to the roof of your mouth like that in Azarath."

She drank down the milk in three large gulps and set the glass down with a satisfied sigh. A milk mustache danced on the top of her lip as she said, "I am fairly certain that they did not have this at the Temple. However, I am not from Azar Ath."

Joey strode across the kitchen, handed her a napkin and motioned for her to attend to her lip. He noted the slight difference in the way she pronounced the name of Raven's home town. "But you call yourself Azar?"

She folded the napkin and set it on the now-empty plate. "I am but one of the Azars," she replied. "There is one for each of the peoples that colonized the other worlds. I myself hail from Azar Noush, the loveliest jewel of them all." She tilted her head to the side and a faraway look crept into her eyes, as if she were remembering something. "Of course, I am a little prejudiced, as it is _my_ world. But surely my lady has told you about them all? She herself was originally the Azar of that land, the home of the Fire of Healing." She stopped as she noted the puzzled reactions on their faces. "She has not delighted you with the tales of Azar Mehr, which holds Mithra's Fire? Or of the glories of Azar Borzin? No?"

Bart looked at Joey. "Did she ever mention any other Azar-something's to you?"

Jericho shook his head. "I think she thought that Azarath was the only such place. Are you saying there are others out there?"

"Others?" Raven's voice preceded her through the kitchen door. Jericho watched her enter with Gar. She was holding his hand so tightly that his knuckles were more gray than green. He wondered what Gar had told her, and what she was feeling now.

"My lady!" Azar exclaimed. She stood so suddenly that her chair flipped over and crashed onto the floor. She dropped to one knee so quickly that she bumped against the table and narrowly missed banging her head its corner. Her voice quivered as she spoke. "I have found you at last, my Azar!"

Raven's hand flew to her heart as she watched the other woman kneel before her. "Please, please stand," she said. "Please, don't kneel. I don't – I don't deserve ..."

Azar stood more slowly than she had knelt. She held out her hands. "Do you know me, lady?"

Raven shook her head. "I am sorry, but I have never seen you nor heard of you before. I—I am not sure what to say."

Azar inclined her head toward Gar. "Did the Azar of Azar Ath not tell you of me? Did she not tell you that I would search for you?"

Joey stood up and maneuvered himself to a spot between Azar and the young couple. She _seemed_ harmless enough, but he did not like the sudden vibrations of stress that he felt coming from Raven. True or not, this stranger's words were going to be difficult for her to hear. He wondered again what she was reading from their odd guest.

"Azar died many years ago," the empath finally replied. "And I thought, except for her mother and grandmother, that she was the only one."

"Oh, my, no," the young lady replied. "There are many of us." She paused for a moment, and then continued. "Perhaps it is as Azar Bahram predicted, that you really do not remember your time as Azar. The shock of Transference does that sometimes. But I had thought that perhaps your teacher would have reminded you of that which you had forgotten. She must not have told you. You were an Azar, too."

* * *

A/N:

Galya: I know that many people think that Raven's nursemaid's name was Gayla. I did, too, until I reread the Tales of the New Teen Titans #2, and it was spelled _Galya_ instead. Surprised me, too.

Rama Kushna is a goddess that appears often in Nanda Parbat, which is a Shambala-like place in the DC Universe. (Remember that Raven saw it marked on a map in the library on Azarath.) We saw it in "52" quite a bit. It is where Renee Montoya (the new Question) trained with Richard Dragon. I think Batman has spent some time there. It was the scene of one of Batman's battles with Ras Al Ghul.


	8. Chapter 8

_In the Azarath of the past…_

Azar perched on the edge of the great boulder and leaned on her staff, the top of it just below her face. Rinzen, her attendant, stood behind her but within an easy arm's reach. His silent almond eyes seemed to watch without staring; he was unobtrusive but ever ready to assist.

"Now, remind me, little one, of the differences between science and magic. You have seen science, on the way here, in the dancing waters of the Fount of Wisdom. And you have seen magic, as well, in our Eternal Flame. What, pray tell, separates them? What have you learned from your ancient teacher?" She rested her chin on top of the staff and stared at her student with twinkling eyes.

Raven merely blinked at her for a moment. Her lip twitched, as if she were resisting the urge to poke her tongue out as she thought, which she did often. Azar smiled inwardly at remembering her young student slaving away at copying out an exercise, the feather of her quill dancing over her small head and her tongue worrying the corner of her lips when she thought no one was looking.

"Do you not remember?"

"It is not that, Azar," she finally replied. "The question does not make sense."

"Ah!" Azar chuckled. "Rinzen, do you think she knows it is a trick question?"

Rinzen merely nodded in response, the barest ghost of a smile rippling across his face.

"Tell me, then, why does the question not make sense?"

"Nothing separates them."

"But they are not quite the same, are they?"

"No."

"Then why are they not the same?"

The little girl took a deep, almost exaggerated, breath before continuing. "They are two ways to see the same thing."

"Go on."

"Science looks at things. Magic looks at what is between things. One manip-or-lates—"

"_Manipulates_," Azar corrected.

"Manipulates the things we can see and _some_ kinds of energy—"

"Yes?"

"Like heat or light. And magic… _manipulates_... other kinds of energy. Like when I healed the bird that was hurt last month."

"Indeed, healing takes a very special energy. Tell me, do ordinary items have both kinds of energy?"

The little empath pondered for a moment. "Yes," she answered with a vigorous nod.

Azar leaned forward. "So there was Magic in the fountain?" she asked in an exaggerated whisper.

Raven answered in the same loud whisper, "Yes. And Science in the Flame."

"Ah!" Azar said, thumping her staff. "Recognizing _that_ is the first step in what I am about to teach you. Knowing what is different, knowing what is the same. What I am about to teach you, my dear, is a little bit of both, as well. Back on our homeworld, they have a name for it, you know."

Raven's eyes shone. "They do?"

"Yes, although most of them do not _know_ that it's both. They call it 'physics'. The study of energies. Which, in the end, is the study of everything. Do you know why?"

"Because… because everything is made of energy?"

"Even this?" Azar asked, patting the boulder behind her. "This seems solid enough. Can it be energy?"

"Yes," Raven answered. "It is just slow energy."

"Very good. And what do we call faster and slower, when we speak of energy?"

"Frequency. It vibrates at a low frequency."

"And what about things you cannot touch? What about heat? Is its frequency low or high?"

"High. _Very_ high."

"Good. Now, listen to this. We could map out the vibrations of every little thing, down to the last grain of sand, and write them down. But that knowledge would only apply here. They would all be different in another dimension." She patted the rock again. "In fact, by _changing_ its frequency, we can move it to its place in another dimension. Do you understand?"

"No." The little girl shook her head. "I want to, though."

Azar took Raven's small, fresh-looking hands into her ancient ones, which were riddled with veins and arthritis. "By the end of the evening, you shall."

* * *

_In the present..._

"Prophecy," Slade muttered to himself as he paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. He stared into the hearth that was cold and empty of its usual warmth and light. "How do we stop this damned prophecy?"

"Which one?"

His daughter's voice interrupted his express train of thought. For once, he had not been aware that someone else was in the room. He must be slipping.

"I wasn't talking to you," Slade snapped at his daughter.

"But you're not on the phone, who are you--"

He pointed to the pair of blue wings resting on his shoulder. "Wintergreen and I are _trying_ to have a conversation, child."

"Wintergreen? But he's... wait, are you trying to tell me that Wintergreen is now a _butterfly?_" Rose hopped up out of her chair and adjusted her eyepatch. "I'm outta here. You're nuts, Daddy."

Slade watched her bounce out of the room, wondering if all daughters chalked up their fathers as Basket Cases. He wondered if Raven thought the same of her father.

"But in Raven's case, I think she's justified," he concluded aloud. "But how do we stop the prophecy?" he asked the butterfly as it flitted off his shoulder and landed on the mantelpiece. He watched it for a moment and studied the twitching of its antenna.

"You're right, I hadn't thought of that," the mercenary replied to his silent listener. "We assumed that just because it was in a book, and because it was in a ... I don't know what he called it, I certainly don't consider it a_ real_ church ... that what it said was true. But how can we be really sure that the book was even genuine, Wintergreen? How can we _know_? Blood is a _criminal_ after all." The butterfly hopped up to rest on the frame of the mirror above the mantel and slowly opened and closed its wings. Slade followed it with his eyes, then gazed briefly into the mirror above it. Shaking his head, he continued. "We need another look. But that place is just a boarded-up hole now. The book may not even be there any more."

He retrieved his encrypted satphone from the coffee table and dialed a familiar number without looking at the keypad, his eyes still watching Wintergreen's flapping wings and waving top legs.

"Slaaaaaade," the Calculator's voice yawned through a greeting. "What'cha need now? Nuclear weapons? Grenades? A hot blonde?"

"I've got a new commission for you, Noah."

"Ah. Yeah. Okay. What are we going to do tonight, Slade?"

"We're going to save the world."

* * *

Bart watched Raven stare at the woman claiming to be Azar, blinking at her strange pronouncement.

"Raven is an Azar, too?" Bart scratched his head. "I thought there was only one."

Azar smiled at him. "There are many of us, little brother. 'Azar' is an office, a title. We are--"

The beep of the incoming message signal on the nearby console cut off the rest of her sentence. Bart looked up at the screen. "Nightwing's calling," he announced. He tapped the 'receive' button. "Hi, Nightwing."

"Hey, Bart," a static-spotted voice replied.

"I'm receiving voice only. Where are you?"

"Out in the field. Just thought I'd check in with you guys on a, uh, situation here in New York. Bart, was Raven around the tower all night last night?"

"I am here," Raven replied softly. "Yes, I have not left the tower since the day before yesterday. What is wrong?"

"Okay, I just wanted to confirm. We've had an, uh, interesting turn of events here. The Book of Blood is missing from the archives over at Manhattan College."

Bart watched Joey cringe at hearing Sebastian's name while Raven's eyebrow danced at the name of the school where she had gone to college, several of her lifetimes ago.

"Manhattan College," she murmured. "How did they come by it? The last time we saw it--"

"Was when we came and rescued you from Sebastian," Bart finished for her. "But I thought we left it behind. We were in kind of a hurry to leave, if I 'member correctly."

"I don't think so, Kid Flash," Nightwing said after a pause. "I put the Book of Blood into the care of the Archives there right after we defeated the _first_ Brother Blood."

"You sure of that?"

"Sure. Some of the religion professors there showed an interest, and they had a secure location where they could keep it. The lady that we knew as Mother Mayhem had just given birth to her daughter and didn't want to mess with it. So it made sense at the time. It was still there a few weeks ago when they called to ask me a few questions. They went in to get it this morning and found it missing. They also found the door padlocked. From the inside. No signs of forced entry. In fact, there were no signs that the door had ever been opened at all. Raven, you're telling me that you didn't just, uh, port in and borrow the book for a while?"

Bart looked back and forth between Raven and Joey. He knew from reading the team archives that from time to time, Raven had done a bit of "after-hours" research for the New York version of the Titans. He couldn't think of any reason why she would have looked for _that_ particular book, though. He thought she'd rather avoid it. Joey sat down next to him, hands clasped in front of him as he became lost in thought.

Azar stepped forward and spoke loudly toward the transmitter. "You _dare_ accuse my Lady of thievery? Just because she knows the Magic? Who are you, you distant knave? And who is this Brother Blood?"

"Who is _that_, Bart?"

"Long story, tell you when we know it, 'wing. Old friend of Raven's. We think."

"Huh?"

Bart only halfway listened to Azar read Dick the Riot Act. He had noticed Raven start a little when Azar mentioned "the Magic", but he wasn't sure why. His gaze sought out Gar, who had slipped away from the group to a terminal in the far corner of the communications room.

"I will not stand here and listen to a stranger make false accusations--"

"What's all the racket?" Vic's voice broke in from the door as he bustled in, carrying some shopping bags. He set them down on the floor and looked at Azar. "What's going on, and who is this strange lady in my tower?"

"That's what I want to know," Dick's voice replied.

Bart kept quiet, letting the loudest voices keep the confusion going. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gar at the distant console, stuffing a printout into his messenger bag. His face was turning a pastel green. The young speedster frowned, not knowing if he should see what was wrong with Gar or try to referee the melee in front of him.

He tuned back in long enough to realize that Vic, as usual, had the upper hand. "Don't start nothin', won't be nothin', lady, just chill out. Dick, thanks for the recap. Sounds like we might have more than one Book of Blood out there, between Big Daddy and Junior. We've got to iron things out here first, then we'll talk about the Book. I'll call you back in a little bit, okay?"

"Don't worry too much about it," Nightwing sighed. "I've got things under control here. It's mostly detective work at this point. I'll call you if I need you. Maybe some student took it to try to sell it on the 'net or something."

"Please let me know if I can assist," Raven said to the transmitter. Did Bart hear a tremor in her voice?

The call disconnected as Gar reappeared next to Raven, as if he had never left. He rested a hand on Raven's shoulder. "Everything all right, sweets?"

She rested her hand on top of his. Bart heard her mutter something about being shaken and fatigued by all the commotion.

"Don't you worry, babe," Gar purred at her. He gently steered her away from the crowd in the communications room. "Go on up and meditate for a while. It'll make you feel all better. While you do that, I'm going to grab a shower. I've been in a lab all morning, and I'm all stinky." His voice sounded fatigued. He looked over his shoulder at the rest of them. "Ma'am, I think your story can wait awhile, right? I don't think she can take it right now."

"Raven," Jericho said as he started to rise from his chair, one arm reaching toward her. Bart noticed that he hesitated for a moment, then fell back into his chair as the couple slowly exited.

"Whatever my lady needs, good sir," Azar replied. "May I assist --"

"Bart, would you show our guest the lounge area and keep her company for a bit?" Gar called from the next room.

Bart saluted. "Sure thing, Gar! And Joey'll help me too, won't you, Joey?"

"Sure thing," the pale-skinned Jericho sighed, staring into his empty hands.

As they left the room, Azar turned to him. "Is the green one her bond-mate?"

"Bond-mate?" Joey replied. "They aren't married, if that's what you mean. They're dating."

"Date? What has fruit got to do with mating? Explain to me this 'dating'."


	9. Chapter 9

_In the Azarath of the past... _

Raven closed her eyes and held her breath through the first jump. When she finally inhaled again, the smoke created by their magic made her cough. She had never smelled anything so horrible, not even the medicinal incense used in the temple infirmary. When the stench faded a little, she shivered and peeked about them. Her eyes found nothing to focus upon.

The world was a blank page, as if it were waiting for an Artist to come along and pencil in the details. Where were the rocks, the fountains, the birds? She heard no sound but her own quick huffing breaths, and her teacher's calm breathing. She could feel neither wind nor draft nor any movement of air or water in this place. She could see no ground beneath her, just more and more of the same white that was above her and around her. It was like being in a big white room, but with no visible horizon to tell her where _up_ ended and _down_ began. She could see Azar quite clearly, but there was no source of light, not even a candle or a torch. She could not even find their shadows. But that did not truly matter, since there was nothing there to see.

Azar rested a hand on Raven's shoulder. "Be calm, little one. There is nothing here to harm you." She chuckled softly.""In fact, there is nothing here at all, besides ourselves. This is the Starting Point."

"St-st-starting Point?"

"Yes," her teacher replied with a nod, "Azarath lies between all the other dimensions that I will show you. So it is very easy to phase yourself to this little place. It is what we call a 'pocket dimension'. These pockets are everywhere. You just have to know how to access them. Many men have tried to build machines to do what we have just done, but they have always failed."

"Failed? Why?"

"Remember what we talked about a moment ago, about energy. With a machine, it would take more energy than all the great worlds put together to move from one dimension to another."

"But how can we do it? We do not even have a machine." The little girl's eyes were wide with wonder, thinking of the many great machines she had seen in the mag-a-zine, those that could move tons of earth or move people across those wide, wide oceans.

"Precisely, little one, precisely. We have only ourselves. But that is enough. Sometimes machines... just get in the way. Those men never thought about the energy of the human spirit, and the energies of magic. Also, they did not have a proper grasp of the mathematics involved." She gestured toward the nothingness around them. "This pocket's 'frequency' is just a little offset from Azarath's, so it is a very simple first step. This is the first place that you will travel to, your first solo destination. I brought you here, and now I will take you back and show you ow to get here on your own. It is itself a gateway to other places, but can be a place unto itself, if you let it be. This is a place to escape to, when you are danger."

"In danger from what, Teacher?"

"There is always danger, my innocent little one, always," Azar replied. "But this place, this nothingness, is safe for you. Now, take my hand, Raven, and we will return to the stone field, where we were before. And I will teach you how to get back here."

* * *

_In the present..._

The young Azar fingered the binding of the book she had brought as she looked at the retreating couple and then to Joe. "Is she always... so... so..." she began, seemingly not sure which word to use next.

"Pretty much, yeah," Bart replied. "Just give her some time. It takes her a while to warm up to someone new. Trust me. It took me forever to get her to stop calling me 'Bartholomew'. Blech!"

Cyborg gave her a sidelong glance as he crossed his arms. "I would think you would know that about her already, if you really did know her before," he remarked in a low voice.

"We were not personally acquainted," she sniffed as she adjusted her rough brown robe with her free hand. "I know M'Lady by reputation only."

Bart led the small group into the Tower lounge. As they walked, he listened to Azar review everything she had already told everyone else with Cyborg, including ticking off the names of the other "glorious cities" and refusing to say any more until she could tell Raven directly. Vic was very calm now that he'd had a chance to listen to her, and more than likely he was monitoring her pulse and voice stresses like the walking lie detector that Cyborg could be sometimes. Azar had never once blinked at Cyborg's chromier parts. She says she's a warrior, maybe she thinks it's armor, Bart thought.

The speedster motioned for her to sit on the sofa in front of the large-screen television that dominated the room. She set the ancient book she was carrying down on the coffee table, not noticing (as Bart did) that Vic was trying to eye the cover of it without her seeing him. It was not easy, as she constantly shifted her gaze from one corner of the room to another, until she stopped to start at the large screen that dominated one wall.

"I see these everywhere," she remarked as she pointed at it. "What do you call them, again?"

"Televisions. I bet you don't have them where you come from."

"No, we do not. Our communal images are not so flat."

"What?" Cyborg asked., jerking his head away from the direction of the book to look at her head-on. "You mean, you have holograms?"

"You have electricity?" Joe chimed in, sitting down on the other side of her. "But Azarath didn't."

"Extremists," Azar hissed. "They isolated themselves from the rest of us. They weren't interested in anything we had or anything we made. They were only interested in--"

"Who's the chick?" Everyone turned to the voice at the door, which was owned by a newly-arrived Superboy, leaning against the frame and munching on a sandwich. He nodded toward the newcomer. "Are we recruiting?"

"This," Bart said with a bow and a flourish, "is Azar." Conner opened his mouth as if to ask a question, but Bart continued before he had a chance to speak. "I mean, she's an Azar, not Raven's Azar. Wait, no, yeah, she is Raven's Azar. That's what she told us just now. But not the one Raven told us about. She didn't know about her. Now she does. Yeah. Azar. But, Young Azar, not Yoda Azar. I mean, she's more like Xena than Mister Miyagi. And –"

"Bart!" Cyborg barked.

Bart ducked before he finished his speech. "Yeah. Azar."

"Yo-da?" Azar asked. "Xe-na? Are they more of your warriors?"

"You mean there's more than one Azar?" Conner asked. "Oh, Geez."

"You mean you have not heard of the perfection that is Azar Khourin—" Azar began.

"She can go on like that all day if you let her," Bart said, searching for the remote control.

"Ooooookay. So. Xena," Conner looked at her, taking a step back. "Got any other names? All these 'Azars' bouncing around makes me dizzy."

Her shoulders drooped. "We surrender our names when we ascend to the role of Azar. Sometimes we are called after the city that we protect." She squared her shoulders and the gleam returned to her eyes. "I am Azar Noush."

"Nosh?" squeaked Bart.

"_Noush_," she repeated.

"Sounds like something I'd order at a bar," Conner said under his breath.

Bart squinted one eye and and then held up his thumbs and forefingers, framing her with his hands. "Hmmmmm. Well, you don't look like a Noush. What did they call you before you, um, surrendered your name?"

She paused a moment. "Sian," she answered softly. "My name was Sian."

"Shawn?" Conner asked.

"That is close enough," she said. She spelled it for them.

"Okay, you're back on Earth now, sooooo, I give you your name back," Bart said, waving his hands majestically.

"You have that authority?" She frowned as she stared at him, dubiousness etched on her face.

"I am the Shogun of the Stair Luge Samurai. Of course I do," Bart replied without hesitation. Still turning pages in the dusty book, Cyborg groaned and rolled his eyes, but said nothing to contradict him.

"Shogun? You are a military ruler here?" She looked away and thought for a moment, then shrugged. "M'Lady has certainly made interesting choices for her aides-de-camp. Very well, then. So long as we are here on your world, you may call me Sian."

"Coooooool," Bart said, and turned his attention to the television.

"Sian," Joe said, pronouncing her name exactly as she had said it, "that sounds like an Irish name. If you really do come from another world, how did you find us? How did you get here?"

Bill Betterman's voice broke in to the conversation as Bart pressed Play on the DVR. "And now a word from our sponsor, Spatula City, where you can always find the best deals on brand-name spatulas. What better way to say 'I love you' than with the gift of a spatula?"

The woman turned to face the television and pointed to it. "That is the voice of the one that led me here. I have tried to watch this... this performance every night when I could find one of these screens. An excellent source of intelligence for me. He shows many pictures of your palace here, and talks much of the island and this city."

"Gee, thanks, Bill," Conner muttered, taking a seat between Bart and the warrior.

"However, I am sure that M'Lady's enemies can see this as well. I am certain that my adjutants would advise against allowing such information to be disseminated so widely. I wonder that you have not silenced him yet."

All of them stared at her intently, and Bart wondered exactly what she meant by _silenced_. Bill Betterman's smooth tenor once again filled the awkward quiet that followed. "In the next segment: our fashion guru reviews trends in superheroine costumes... or lack of them. And after that... who's got a crush on Starfire?"

"Who doesn't?" Superboy replied, suddenly more interested in the sight of one of Kori's bikini-clad modeling pictures on the screen than in the ersatz Azar.

"Starfire?" Sian asked, squinting at the screen. "What an unusual name. I have never seen a human quite like her."

Bart and Conner sighed in stereo. "You could say that again," they said in unison.

Bart could hear Vic and Joey continue talking to Azar -- no, Sian, he reminded himself -- in the background. Vic had seated himself in the lounge chair that had specially reinforced to hold the massive weight of his metallic body, and Joey had perched on the edge of the sofa behind them. She sounded a little more relaxed now, and was eagerly describing her world, sounding more like a Travel Channel announcer than ever, while still swearing she would only tell the whole story to Raven. Seeing that Sian was as safe and comfortable as Gar could have asked for, he turned his internal attention to other serious matters, other questions dancing in his mind that begged for answers.

When the show took its next commercial break, Bart leaned toward Conner and remarked in a voice loud enough for the others to hear, "Gee, Conner, I wonder if we really do need a new spatula. Let's go to the kitchen and check."

* * *

Raven stared into her closet, willing herself to search out what she would wear the next morning, her first day back at school. She tried to think about history and literature and calculus instead of the sad silent emptiness that clung to her dear Garfield like a fog, an emptiness that remained with her even after he had left the room. He had given her a quick kiss on the cheek but no words to explain the hollowness in his eyes. The news that Nightwing had delivered tried to creep into the space that that moment had left behind. She shook her head to clear it. The only books she wanted to think about now were textbooks, and the only teachers she wanted to see were the ones at Galileo High. She had lied to the group downstairs. She was not fatigued. She was confused. She was angry.

The love that had developed between her and Garfield over the summer had brought her meandering life some solidity, some stillness that it had never had before. She treasured that warm bond that connected their minds and hearts. But all of a sudden that newly earned confidence was slipping out from underneath her, somewhere between her beloved's sadness and the melancholy thirst that was gripping Joseph and the appearance of the stranger. Raven refused to think of the young woman -- or even her own self -- as "Azar". Raven sighed. Why did it seem that every time she gained some ground in her life that someone stepped in to pull her backward?

A fierce desire to flee the tower and leave the frustration behind pierced her heart as she clutched one of her blouses, nearly ripping it from the hanger.

She wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, as long as she left her history behind her. She fought against the wish, though. When she had first returned to the tower on the other side of summer, she had made a promise that she would not disappear from the tower when something bothered her. She had promised that she would stay and try to resolve things instead of resorting to her standard solution: running away. The emptiness of the myriad pocket dimensions called to her -- though some not as empty as they used to be -- but she stomped her feet instead, as if grounding herself into the tower.

Raven swallowed the desire and finished removing the blouse from its hanger, more carefully this time. She traced the embroidered daisies on its front and thought of Karen Thunder Horse, who had given her the shirt. The thought of Karen reminded her of the elder Thunder Horse, her great-grandfather, who visited her in dreams from time to time. He was a welcome visitor after the lifetime of nightmares she had suffered. She longed for some of his wisdom now, but she already knew what advice he would give her. Karen herself had been a stranger when the summer had started, but she was dear to the young empath now. So she would speak to this new stranger, who felt so earnest in her statements. There was nothing malicious about her at all, but she did seem to want something. Something... something secret, Raven realized, now that she had taken time to absorb the conversation.

She would talk to the stranger. But Raven would do so on her own terms, after she started school. She would talk to her and get it done and go on with her life. And she would talk to Garfield, and she would find out what had made him so sad and try to fix it, or at least try to comfort him. And talk to him about school, except for the secret class she was taking, the one that would teach her (finally) how to cook. She brightened at the prospect of preparing a meal for him with her own hands, someday. She folded the blouse and gently rested it on her dresser. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

It was time to move forward.

* * *

"This is _not_ the kitchen!"

Conner's voice seemed to come out of nowhere in the semi-darkness of the room. The shades of the bedroom had been lowered, and the only light spilled from underneath the closed bathroom door.

Bart shushed him. "Gar'll hear us!"

Conner looked from the messenger bag on the chair in front of them to the bathroom door. "He's taking a shower, so we've got a little white noise cover. He doesn't have my hearing, you know. But that doesn't mean that I like this. At all."

He watched the team speedster crouch in front of the chair, rubbing his chin in deep thought, reminding Conner of Indiana Jones pondering how to retrieve a booby-trapped idol.

"Why are we doing this again? I dropped by for a visit, not a B&E."

"Because," Bart said, never taking his eyes off the outline of the messenger bag, " A, I'm pretty sure that he got his test results today; B, he hasn't seen fit to share them with me; and C, he's acted like he was feeling pretty low all day. I gotta find out what it says."

Conner crossed his arms and leaned over to whisper in Bart's ear. "What if it is none of your bees-wax, Mr. Allen? Maybe he just wants to keep it to himself? I mean, this kinda stuff, it's like, personal, man!"

Bart hissed back, "Yeah, but he's also my friend, and I'm supposed to help my friends, right? How'm I supposed to help him out when I don't know what's wrong?" He tilted his head to one side as he pulled on a plastic glove with a practiced snap.

"Aw, man," Conner moaned as Bart slipped on another glove. "Give me a break!

Shouldn't we be more worried about Azar the Warrior Princess downstairs?"

"Hey, he'll smell me on it if I use my bare hands!" Bart replied. "Not to mention, you don't quite have your x-ray vision perfected yet. More's the pity. And don't worry about Sian. She's cool." He carefully released the clasp on the front of the bag. "I could do this at super-speed if I didn't think I'd make a lot of noise in the process. And you didn't wanna use your TTK here, so I can't be too careful.""He briefly glanced at the door, noting that the shower was still running. He slipped out a bundle of papers. "Okay, Kon-El, let's put a little light on the subject."

Conner switched on the flashlight, and he skimmed the pages over Bart's shoulder."He skipped most of the medical-eze, looking for any words that looked familiar, or at least pronounceable. The white noise of the water began to fade in the next room, and then it disappeared completely, followed by the grunting sounds made during a vigorous toweling-off. Bart silently slipped the report back into the bag, making sure to return it to its previous position.

The pair slithered out the door and tiptoed back to Bart's room before they spoke again.

"What does _prophylactic action recommended_ mean, Bart?" Conner asked.

Bart stroked his chin for a moment, lost in thought. His answer bubbled to the surface as he stabbed his finger into the air. "It means we have a mission!"


	10. Chapter 10

_In the Azarath of the past..._

Raven released a hard-held breath once she could see the familiar stone field of Azarath surrounding them, the Pinnacle of Solitude towering to the left. She pinched her nose at the stench of the smoke and waved at Rinzen, who was waiting for them.

"You will become accustomed to the smell, little one," Azar said without bothering to wave it away from her. "Now, we shall examine the actual magic involved. Do you remember the lesson we had last week, where we talked about using numbers to describe one's current location?"

"Co--coordinates?"

"Monsieur Descartes gave us quite the gift when he created an easier way to teach this particular skill. Do you remember this?" With a faint chant, she drew in the air with her finger, a plus sign hovering in front of them when she finished, glowing with its own inner light.

"Yes," Raven said, remembering drawing grid after grid the week before, scratching them out with a quill on parchment until her hands cramped. Now they were as impossible to forget as her own name. She pointed to the point where the lines crossed. "And that is zero. The Origin."

"Very good. And if I move from here to here," her teacher continued as she traced a diagonal line across the grid, going through the zero point, "in how many dimensions am I moving?"

"Two. Across and up."

"And what if I add another axis to our grid?" Azar traced another line, going through the zero point yet again, but this time from front to back. "Then I move from here to here." She drew a line from the space just before Raven's nose, through the middle and to the other side, ending with her arm high in the air.

"Three! Across and up and forward... no... back... I..."

"'Three' is good enough," Azar smiled briefly. "Forward or backward depends on where one stands. So, if we call across, left or right, a name, like x, and up-down y, and forward or backward z, we could describe where we are here with three numbers, could we not?" And she drew "3,2,1" in square brackets next to the grid.

Raven stuck the tip of her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she thought, remembering that part of the previous lesson. "Yes," she answered with a bobbing nod. "Each number tells you how far you are from the Origin."

"Could I still use three numbers, even if I just moved up and across, not forward and backward?"

"Ummmmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Think, child. _Think_. Does that last number ever need to change, if we move that way?"

"Yes! I mean, no, it does not need to change. As long as the third number is always zero, we can do that."

"Precisely, my girl. Precisely. It is very important for this skill, to keep in mind what should change, and what should stay the same. Except with what we learn now, you _are_ the zero point. _You_ are the Origin. You move in relation to yourself, knowing the point that you to which you wish to go, and what you need to change to get there. But these-- " Azar waved her arm, erasing the glowing lines from existence. " -- these are very, very primitive matrices. The actual universe can be described with many more numbers. The fourth one, as you know is..."

"Time," Raven yelped, filling in the blank. "And forbidden," she added quickly.

"Yes," Azar nodded, her tone serious. "That is one of the things you must never change. But the actual list of elements is not even limited to four. The number is actually infinite." She paused to watch Raven's eyes grow wider at the thought of remembering that many numbers. "We are only aware of ten, directly, and that is only among the members of the High Council. Most here only work with the first five, leaving the fourth alone, naturally. As you move from here..." Azar disappeared in a puff of acrid smoke, to reappear at the top of the Pinnacle, fifty feet above them, and she had to shout to be heard. "...to here, I have only changed the first three elements. Yes, I have gone backward, up, and across! And now --" She reappeared next to Raven again. "-- I have come forward, down, and across. I stayed in the same dimension, Azarath's dimension. What does that tell you about my fifth element?"

"That its number did not change?"

"Ah, yes. And the fourth?"

"No real change, either, Teacher. It was-- was-- instant—instantaynus."

"_Instantaneous_. Say it again."

Raven repeated the word three more times, trying to get her mouth around the syllables. "So how do we get to Earth?" she asked, then popped her hand over her mouth when she realized she had said it out loud.

Azar looked at her gently for a long moment, then muttered something under her breath to the still-waiting Rinzen, whose soft gray hood bobbed along with his nodding. Then, more loudly, she said, "How do you think, my darling?"

"Change the fifth. You just... just have to know what the number is. How far away the frequency is from where you are now."

Azar nodded. "Good. And the spell to change it --"

A loud crack interrupted her. A boulder rumbled around the top of the Pinnacle as a figure appeared in a haze of smoke where Azar had been just a few moments before. The rock that he had perched upon had broken free and nearly taken him down with it, but he leaped to the one behind it just at the last moment.

"Andreus?" Azar shouted up to the tower of stone. She turned to her attendant. "Rinzen, can you see him?"

Rinzen pointed at the loose scrabble beneath the young man. It was beginning to slide under his weight.

"Azar! Goddess!" Andreus called as scree melted away beneath his perch. "Heed me! Do not reveal the path to Earth! Please hear me--"

"Come to us, Andreus," Azar called out to him, "Use the skill to come to us! You are in danger! The rocks! You miscalculated--"

He leaned forward, heaving a great rock above his head, and Raven could feel the panic shooting out from him, like shards of fire. She tugged at Rinzen's sleeve. "We have to bring him down, Rinzen, he will fall, he will fall... he is so afraid! Rinzen!"

"Andreus, come down this instant!" Azar shouted at him once again, and Raven recognized the sharp edges in her voice. "You know this is not our way!"

"Juris – my brother – I cannot let more die if she leaves – " He pushed the rock higher into the sky. With horror freezing the breath in her throat, Raven finally realized his intention. She froze, unable to move, unable to believe that someone would want to smash her with a rock.

"Rinzen – take her--" Azar began, but before she could finish her command, the stone beneath Andreus's feet gave way, and he began tumbling and bouncing, skeleton cracking and skin tearing before he finally landed in a splash of blood and exposed bone at the bottom of the Pinnacle.

Raven was wracked with echoes of the man's agony, and she felt drawn forward to him by her empathic powers, pulled to his pain. Strong arms suddenly wrapped around her and held her back, and she struggled in Rinzen's grasp until the scenery faded into roiling black smoke. When it cleared, the silent man released her and stared at her for a moment with eyes filled with both sadness and understanding. Seeing that she was where they had started this lesson, in the hallway in front of Azar's chambers, she shook herself until she stood up straight and looked from him to the tapestry she had been studying only a few hours before. She looked up at the picture of the gently smiling Kwan Yin with tears dancing in the edges of her eyes.

She could not feel the broken man's pain any longer. But that did not make her feel any better.

* * *

_In the present..._

The cramped living room was a far cry from the cozy den at his mansion. The smell of smoke that clung to the walls oozed from months of stale cigarettes instead of the warm fireplace that Slade preferred. He stood over the chipped and scarred coffee table, hands behind him as he studied the ancient-looking tome laying upon it. For a moment he wished he were in his usual work uniform – the swashbuckling boots always gave him a bit of a boost – but he had decided to stick with a more nondescript pair of jeans and white oxford shirt for this particular mission. His eyepatch made him stand out enough. He and Wintergreen had departed as soon as the Calculator had called with the address of this particular coffee table.

The tenant of the apartment curled up on the couch, which Slade thought had seen better days in the seventies, and continued to talk around her roll-your-own. "No, I was never a Mother, too much responsibility. But I was a Sister for a good while. I needed three hots and a cot. If he wanted to give me a place to live for just chantin' some words and burnin' some stinky weeds, who was I to say no?"

"But it turned out to be more than that," Slade said, urging her to tell him more.

She looked away and took a long drag on her cigarette. She blew the smoke out between pursed lips, the way he remembered his late wife doing when she had to think about things she'd rather not think about. He blinked his eye and pushed thoughts of Addie out of his head.

"Yeah, after a while, it did. I put up with all the stranger crap for a while, even took a pilgrimage to Zandia, but when I saw all those demons flying around in the woods when he tried to marry that gal, I knew that my ticket to ride had been punched. I ran like a scalded dog."

"Not empty-handed, though," said Slade, pointing at the book on the table, careful to not jostle Wintergreen's perch on his shoulder.

"Well," she said, her gravelly voice floating lazily through the smoke, "I felt I was due some compensation for services rendered, don't you know. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say your little butterfly friend there was coughing." She put out the cigarette with a firm jab and grind in the overflowing ashtray. "I thought maybe I could get a good price for it from one of those archaeologists, you know, one of those Tennessee Pete types with the leather fedoras."

"Not too many of those around."

"No," she replied with a sigh. "I called people as far away as New York. A few weeks ago, one place even told me they already had one! The one pencil-neck I could convince to look at it told me it wasn't even the real deal."

"A forgery?"

"Pretty recent copy, especially those pages in the back. Y'know, the ones about where the little bastard was supposed to bang that gal he was gonna marry, the daughter of this demonic dude, what's his name, Hexagon or something, and take over the world?"

"Trigon's daughter, you mean?"

"Yeah, yeah, Trigon, that's the name." She tapped another cigarette out of the pack, stuck it between yellowed teeth, and lit it. "Never heard of the Triangle-guy before the kid came along. When we had the old Blood, we just were supposed to worship _him_, not this other bum. You know, sleep, eat, chant, burn a little incense, brainwash the noobs when they came in, the usual. Pretty sweet deal, if you could keep your mouth shut, even if the outfits were a little over the top. When this pale kid took over, though, everything changed."

Slade trailed his fingers through his goatee, considering her words. Muddy mysteries were suddenly clearing up for him. "So you think he made it up? Why do you think he brought the young lady into this, then?"

She twisted her fingers through hair that was far too short and choppy on her to be attractive, as if it were struggling to re-grow in several spots on her head. "I guess because his old man wanted to bang her, too. I remember, Big Blood tried to marry her a few years back when I was still an acolyte up at the Buzzard's Bay sanctuary back East. I'm guessin' he tried to make it look like he was doing what dear old dad couldn't."

"And to legitimize his reign."

"You could say that. So he wrote up the whole thing and tried to pass it off as gospel." She snorted, the cigarette just barely hanging on in the corner of her mouth. "Oh, _please_. The little asshole didn't even bother to use a quill. He used a Bic, for crying out loud."

"So there really is no such prophecy?"

"More like a plan. A very sick, twisted little plan."

"You have no love for Blood, then?"

"Gimmie a break. I don't even think of him as the real Blood. When he took over, I had to shave my head," she said as she pointed to the sparse patches of hair. "And it doesn't want to grow back. Watched him eat the face offa two different Mother Mayhems. Not what I'd call ideal working conditions. And when the Titans took him down, I lost my meal ticket. I actually had to go get a frickin' job. _Puh_." She gestured at the book. "I got no use for this, either. I wouldn't use it for toilet paper!" She narrowed her eyes, plucked the cigarette out of her mouth and pointed it at him. "But is it worth somethin' to ya?"

Slade chuckled and reached for his wallet. The relief he felt was more than worth Calculator's finder's fee. "Answer a few more questions for me, my dear, and you'll be able to take a nice, long vacation. One that doesn't involve shaving your head."

* * *

Bart adjusted his fake mustache and studied the colorful boxes in front of him, bathed in the light of the morning sun streaming through the pharmacy's windows.

"Did you really have to wear that thing?" Conner asked, averting his eyes from the shelves laden with latex.

"I need to look like a mature customer," Bart quipped as he pushed the center of it back into the space beneath his nose. "Besides, I have to protect my secret identity."

"Oh, like I blend in," Connor growled, pointing to the red symbol on his chest. He glanced around them, making sure that the were still the only ones on the aisle.

"You're wearing your glasses," Bart pointed out without looking up.

"They don't hide the shirt, Bart. If Cassie hears I was here, looking at these, she'll put me in a hurt locker. And when you girlfriend's an Amazon, _hurt_ takes on a whole new meaning." He started ramming his forehead into the one shopping bag they already had, with a tuft of green fur poking out of the top. "And I don't want to even _think_ of what Raven will do--"

"Calm down, big guy," Bart replied. "We're just going to give them straight to Gar and leave the rest up to him. And don't worry about your shirt. They'll just think you picked it up over at Goths Galore." He waved in the direction of that particular store, still not taking his eyes off the rows of merchandise. "They've sold 'em by the pound for months now, even if they didn't pay for the marketing rights. Besides, we're here on a humanitarian mission."

"Humanitarian?"

"Yes! If Gar goes shopping for these, and someone sees him, one call by the pharmacist's assistant to Bill Betterman and --" he made a slashing motion across his throat "-- it's bye bye sweet romance, hello tabloids. Believe me, I've worked too hard for this relationship to let that happen." He picked up another box and read the back. "No, not this one. Too fancy. Let's start simple." He scanned the next two. "By the way, got any sewing skills? There are a couple of shirts we'll need for the teddy bear--"

"Not that I would admit to. Not even to Tim."

Bart finally looked up. "You wouldn't _have_ to admit it to Tim. He'd already know."

"Speaking of Tim, why didn't you lasso him, too?"

"He wasn't available. His school started _this_ week, poor guy. Besides, you're the better shopper."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, can't you go any faster, fleet-feet?"

"No! This decision-making process is a very delicate procedure! This is not something even I can rush through."

"I'd rather be looking at the teddy bears again. Less embarrassing."

There was almost an audible 'ping' as Bart held up his finger, jaw hung open as his brain seemed to whir inside his skull. Suddenly Conner held cash in hand where he didn't a moment before. "Speaking of teddy bears ..."

Conner groaned. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

_I am the master of my fate:  
I am the captain of my soul. _

Raven whispered the words again, savoring each one. Sitting in the sunshine of the Galileo High School courtyard, she ran her fingers across the page of her literature book. The literature teacher had read "Invictus" aloud to the class just a few minutes before, as a way to start the new school year, and the poem had sent a chill of delight down her spine.

She rifled through the pages, coming across another poem, this one by some gentleman named Eliot:

_Do I dare_

_Disturb the universe? _

_In a minute there is time _

_For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse._

She closed the book and hugged it, wondering what other treasures were hidden in its pages. She carefully set it down on top of the trigonometry book beside her. She cringed as she remembered her panic upon first hearing of the subject and her subsequent embarrassment when Bart informed her that it was simply the study of triangles and not her father. She opened the brown paper bag that Garfield had handed her that morning as she had left. She had not had time then to ask what was in it, but now she discovered a small tub of hummus mixed with roasted red peppers, a round of pita bread, a bag of baby carrots and a tiny after-dinner mint. She discovered a slip of paper in the bottom of the bag, and a quiet smile crept across her face as she read her beloved's handwriting: _For my favorite vegetarian-- have a GRRRRREAT day at school, miss my witchy-boo, love you Gar XOXOXOX"_.

"A love note. How sweeeeet." A low voice dripping with venom rippled through the air around her. She jerked her head left and right, looking for the source, wondering why she had not sensed someone close by, close enough to see the contents of the note. A lone figure, back to her, hunched over in the bench directly behind her. The hood of a sweatshirt was pulled up over the speaker's head, which soon turned around to look at Raven.

She found her own, older face, staring back at her. Raven froze, unable to breathe or think, not even able to move enough to drop the note that was still clutched in her fingers. Unlike the copy of herself Joseph's soulscape, this one did not smile.

* * *

Author's Notes:

When she first started high school in the Geoff Johns run, her student id card stated that she went to Galileo High. I know that in current canon she has hopped around in different high schools, but I decided to stick with the original,since I did branch off right after the Galileo High introduction.

Buzzard's Bay: The main American East Coast Church of Blood in the Wolfman/Perez days was in Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts. Blood seemed to split his time between this place and his headquarters in Zandia.

Includes quotes from "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot


	11. Chapter 11

_In the Azarath of the past_...

Raven was so numb that she barely noticed anything during the walk back to her chambers. Rinzen had waited with her for an hour in the corridor outside Azar's study. When the priestess did not return, he escorted her back to her own quarters on the other side of the temple complex. Her thoughts were still in a haze as he left, motioning with his hands that he would bring food to her soon and that she should get some rest.

She stood in the middle of her room as he closed the heavy door behind him. She finally reached out with one hand and leaned heavily onto one of the great posts that supported the canopy over her bed. She clutched at the heavy emerald-colored curtains with her small hand for a moment. Then, somehow, she found the clasps at her shoulders and undid them, letting her cloak slip to the floor. She curled up on the bed and pulled the edge of the heavy blanket over her head. Even though she could no longer feel it directly, the memory of the dying man's pain sloshed around in her soul. Her thoughts did not form into words in her mind. They were just a swirl of images and aches of pains remembered, like tiny phantoms pricking her skin. She sniffed as she let the tears flow, hot and wet, across her face, not caring what anyone might say. They were not there to see. Wrapping her arms tightly around her knees, she moaned as she tried to burrow deeper under the covers and hide from the horrors of the day.

The dim light streaming in through the high long windows grew still dimmer, and still Azar did not come. As time dragged on with every beat of her heart, finally slowing down since Andreus's appearance, her mind became a little clearer. Eventually she sat up and looked about her, blanket pulled over her head like a hood. With her lesson interrupted and no instructions from her teacher or from Rinzen, she was unsure of what to do next. Her stomach growled faintly into the growing gloom of the room, but her mind rebelled at the thought of food. She frowned at the door, wondering if Theron might be in the library. She did not really want to talk about what had happened that day; she just wanted to feel the warmth of someone who actually knew how to smile and hear the familiar dusty whispers of the parchment and the books that were always so welcoming to her. Or even... she dared wonder... her mother... where would her temple duties place her, now? Did she dare look for her?

She could feel the presence coming down the hall even before she could hear the footsteps. She edged her nose out from under the blanket and peered at the door, hoping against hope that what she felt was real. And, soon enough, the door creaked open, and Raven's heart skipped a beat as her mother emerged from behind it.

"Mother!" she squealed, throwing her arms wide as she started to run to Arella. She stopped mid-stride as her mother threw up a hand, signaling her to stop. The fading light of the day shone on the bird-shaped gauntlet wrapped around her forearm and off the beads of the golden headpiece that danced above her eyes.

"Coman comes behind me," Arella said softly. She lowered her arm and softened her gaze."I just have a moment here. I came to see ... if you were ... " She swallowed before she finally said, "I wanted to see if you were safe."

Raven's face fell as she lowered her own arms, fully aware of what Coman would say, were he to see someone, even her own mother, touching her. "I am _calm_, Mother," she mumbled, her usual reply, not sure why that piece of information was as important as it seemed to be.

Arella leaned out of the room, looked down the corridor, leaned back in and swept into the room. She picked up Raven's fallen cloak and stood before the child, draping it across her daughter's small shoulders. She made a great show of slowly fastening the clasps, straightening them and resettling them in place. Raven barely moved as Arella did this, soaking up every moment of the surreptitious contact.

"You _do_ seem ... calm..." Arella began as she brushed a few hairs away from her daughter's face. "But you do seem a little... confused, yes?"

Raven shut her eyes tight and bit at her lip for the briefest moment, trying to find the words for the question swirling inside her. She opened them again when she felt a stab of worry from Arella, who always seemed frightened of her daughter's silences. "Yes," she replied in a small voice. "He tried to hurt me. And he tried to stop my lesson." Then it all seemed to spill out of her at once. "He thought I would do something bad, really bad. It sounded like I had already done something bad. What did I do? Coman thinks I am bad sometimes, but not like this and..."

"Hush, now," Arella said softly. "Coman does not think you are bad--:

"He does," Raven replied, sticking her lip out, thoughts of Andreus scattered at the thought of the High Councilor's frown, which he always seemed to wear whenever she was in the room.

Arella brushed a stray hair from her daughter's face. "He just wants you to listen, and learn, and--"

"Of course you would say that," the little girl snapped, stepping back from her mother. "He likes _you_. I _feel_ it."

Arella dropped her hand and sighed, gazing at some distant point over her daughter's shoulder. "Of course he likes you, too," she said without moving her eyes. "You feel everything people feel around you, but you are too young to--"

"I may be small but--"

Arella's gaze returned to her face, but this time her eyes were more distant. "I am sure you are simply wrung out by what happened to Andreus, you are not thinking straight, child. Your instincts were hampered. You wanted to heal him, and were held back."

Raven felt the abrupt change of topic like a hard jerk inside her, but she held the tip of her tongue between her teeth and exhaled hard to keep her temper in check, as Azar counseled her to do so often that she would have sworn on the Eternal Flame that the steps for "calming down" were etched on the back side of her eyelids. She remained silent, hoping her mother would tell her more.

Arella sat down on the bed and gestured for Raven to sit by her, keeping a small distance between them. "Rinzen brought you back so you would not heal Andreus."

"Because he was bad?"

Arella shook her head. "No, Raven. He injuries were too severe even for you to handle."

"But I have grown since I learned how to do it--"

"It has nothing to do with how big or how small you are, child," Arella replied. "One lesson, it seems, you will have to learn before its time: you cannot heal the mortally wounded, Raven, without taking their place. Do you understand?"

Raven stared at her mother for a long moment. "Take their place? No, I do not know what you mean."

Arella sighed. She said, very slowly, "It means that if you try to heal someone that is about to die, they might be healed, but you would die instead. And that will not change, no matter how big you grow."

"I would ... _die_?"

"Most certainly. And you _cannot_ do that." She put her hand on Raven's shoulder and gripped it, hard. She said with a much sterner voice, "You are not to do that, ever. You must _swear_ you will not do that. Your survival is far too important."

"B-but what if that person is really important, too?" Confusion ripped through Raven. She had never been told to _not_ heal someone in pain. "What if Azar got hurt like Andreus? She is the most important person, ever. I would have to help her, wouldn't I?"

A brief ripple of pain crossed Arella's face, and Raven could feel the constriction in her mother's chest at the very thought of the loss of their almost-goddess. "Not even then," she said softly.

"Why? Why couldn't I save her?" Raven could barely choke at the words. She could barely stand the knowledge that this strange gift of hers could not save everybody.

"Because if you die, many more than just Azar would perish."

* * *

_In the present..._

"Mail call!" Cyborg called through the intercom. "Gar, you got a package. It's in the TV room on the coffee table. I'll be in the garage."

Gar found the rather drab – about as plain a box as one could use – sulking on the coffee table. After he ripped off the tape, he found a note in his cousin's wandering handwriting on top of some very colorful boxes, devoid of any text except the word "Ribbed".

"Uh-oh," Gar murmured as he flipped the note open, half-afraid of what it would say.

_ Hey Gar – I was thinking – yeah, I know, a dangerous proposition – but I thought you might need a little help in the romance department. I know Rave likes her privacy and all, so I thought I'd make it easy for you guys. So I enrolled you in the Condom of the Month club. Don't worry, they think you're me, living at the Tower, so don't worry if you get a package for me there, it's really for you. Enjoy, and remember: '"Don't be silly, wrap your--"_

"Maaaaaaaatt!" Gar yelled into the empty room. He groaned. "I can't believe this! Like I can't buy my own--"

Someone behind him coughed politely. Gar spun around to see Bart holding a box neatly wrapped in white paper festooned with silver hearts on it and tied up with a matching silver ribbon. If Gar's face was a darker shade of green than normal, the speedster gave no hint that he noticed. His game-show host smile sparkled as he said, "Gar, we're friends, right?"

Gar cringed, hastily stuffed Matt's note back into the box, and cleared his own throat. "Uh, yeah," he replied. "Sure we are. What--"

"Yes, we are," Bart replied, "And friends help their friends no matter how difficult--"

"--or embarrassing -- " Conner pretended to cough the words behind his fist.

"-- that help may be to give." Bart ignored Conner's fidgeting and plowed ahead. "In the interests of romance and world peace -- "

"_World peace_?" Conner moaned under his breath. "Gimmee a break!"

"-- I present to you this token of our hopes for a loving future between you and your favorite empath, and mine."

Bart proudly proffered the wrapped box, while Conner fidgeted and hopped from foot to foot. Gar tore the paper, grateful for a distraction from Matt's note and offering puzzled thanks. Conner whispered, "Bart, where did you put the receipt?"

Bart leaned over and whispered, "I got a bottle of shampoo for Wonder Girl, and she wanted it so she would know how much to pay me back for the --"

"_Condoms_?!?" Cassie's shriek shook the lampshades next to the couch. "CONNER!"

"Oh, boy." Superboy looked up at the ceiling and uttered a silent prayer. "Gotta go, I think I hear Aunt Martha calling me," he whispered over his shoulder as he slipped out the window and quietly flew in a vaguely eastern direction.

"Bart!" the stunned Gar finally yelped.

"Hey, if you don't like the colors, I can--"

"Bart! I can't – I don't --" He closed his eyes and counted to ten as slowly as he could manage. He finally said, in a strained voice, "I can't _believe_ you _did_ this."

"But --" stammered Bart. "But -- isn't time for you and Raven to --"

Gar held up his hand. "We are _not_ talking about that! That's _private_."

Bart frowned. "That's what Superboy said."

"And why didn't you listen?"

"But I thought – I thought – Jay told me, 'when a man and a woman love each other--'"

"You're quoting The Talk to me? I think you need to have that talk with Jay again, Bart, because I don't think you got it all."

"Sure I did, Gar," he chirped happily. "All about dating and birth control and the --"

"_Timing_, Bart. It's not _time_ yet. We're not ready, and I'm_ not_ discussing it with you." Gar slammed the gift box on top of Matt's box and then slammed himself onto the couch and glared up at Bart.

Confusion rolled across Bart's face. "But you've always liked my help before! I don't get it!"

"Because it is – quite literally – none of your _fucking_ business, Bart! Why can't you people just leave us alone?"

A light breeze ruffled his hair, and it took him a moment to realize that Bart had fled the room, possibly the tower. He could still hear Cassie yelling for Conner. He wished, not for the first nor last time that day, that the younger Titans' schools would go ahead and kick in for the fall. He shook his head, knowing that if the tabloids would have a field day if they knew that Beast Boy, former child actor and wanna-be hero, was drowning in a gross of condoms. Which, it finally occurred to him, might have been what Bart was trying to prevent. _I guess I'd better apologize, if I can find him, but later, _he thought at last. _Gotta get these boxes out of sight first. I don't even know how to begin to explain these to--_

A sudden, cold fear lay heavy on his chest, crushing the end of his thought. He panted, barely able to breathe, and darted his eyes around the empty room to look for the cause. Slipping into the form of a bloodhound, he sniffed around, but could detect only the people he knew were in the tower, and even though she was at school, he could still smell a faint scent of --

"Raven!" the hound bayed. "Vic! Vic!" he howled, as Sian and Joey appeared in answer to his summons.

"What is wrong with m'lady?" Sian demanded. "I thought she was in the learning temple?"

Gar stood up on his hind legs and resumed his human shape, hands trembling. "She is... and she's in trouble!"

* * *

Author's Notes: Poor Bart. He was just trying to help!


	12. Chapter 12

Hello all - I am sorry that it has been so long since I have posted. I finally got another chapter together and hope that it is not quite so long before I post again. Thank you for your patience. Have a Happy New Year and a grand 2011!

_In the Azarath of the past..._

In the Hall of the Gray Eagles, teacher and student met once more. The air was heavy with the jasmine incense burning in braziers around the room, and a warm fire roared on the open hearth to chase the chill out of the great space. The flames reflected off the collection of temple treasures displayed here, including richly dressed statues of men with the heads of birds and a gold-plated suit of armor standing guard over an eagle carved out of marble. The armor reminded Raven of the stories of the king named Arthur that Theron had read to her over the years, or, since it had many curved lines in places that took on a woman's shape, if it had been worn by the ancient Queen Elizabeth when her people warred with Spain. It wasn't until this year that she had thought to wonder why something used in war was present in a temple that preached peace. Perhaps it was to remind them of what they were missing, she thought; but she was not sure, and she had never asked. Some hidden part of her laughed at the paradox, but she choked down the unbidden mirth with a deep cleansing breath. Rinzen took a silent stance in front of the armor, arms crossed, listening to the halting thunk-thunk of Azar's staff echoing over the eagle image tiled into the mosaic on the floor.

"To answer your question, little one, it is not how many dimensions in which one _exists_. It is how many dimensions through which one can _move_ that concerns us now. Science can describe to us our place in space-time, up to a certain number of aspects. Magic, however, works on a different -"

Her speech was interrupted by a series of short, sharp coughs. Azar held her breath after the last one, and closed her eyes with a slight grunt. Raven's eyes widened as she felt the echo of a sharp prick in her lungs. As she had been trained, she remained silent while her teacher recovered her breath enough to speak. When she did speak again, her voice was a little rougher, as if it were being dragged over sharp stones inside her throat.

"For example, anywhere I walk about here would be considered on our plane of existence, and any point you could travel to on Earth – without magical assistance- would be considered on Earth's plane. Rinzen," she croaked to her attendant, "a little water, if you please."

She coughed again as she sipped from the carved goblet that Rinzen brought to her.

"There are an infinite number of ways to move about, truly. But we only use a few of these at any given time, so only worry about the ones in which you actually need to move. Do you remember what I told you about that last time, Raven?"

Raven pursed her lips while she formed her answer. "Left and right, forward and backward, up and down." Raven rubbed a spot between her collar bones, trying to get rid of the ever sharper pain she felt from her teacher. "And we leave the fourth one alone."

"Ah, yes, the fourth. I am glad you remember. Yes, it is forbidden to alter that aspect with this magic. Its effects are unknown, and we decided long ago to leave it flowing as the Creator sees fit. Not to mention, as the globes move through space with the passage of time, one would need to move such a precise amount of space that the mathematics are beyond the power of the particular spell we use. You may trust me on that one. So we will leave further instruction on _that_ topic alone." Azar paused, took a longer sip of water, and continued. "The fifth aspect is the frequency of the energy vibration, which I told you about before. Only objects on the same vibrational frequency may interact. Many different things can exist in the same place and never touch, if their fifth aspects have different values."

"What do you mean, Azar?" Raven asked, raising a small hand to her teacher in hopes of healing the cough that racked her body. Azar waved her hand away.

"No, dear one, no. Old age is not something you can heal." She smiled weakly at her student, sipped at the goblet again, then pressed on with the lesson. "This temple shares space with a special spot on Earth. If you simply changed the value of the fifth aspect, leaving the others alone, you would end up in a most interesting place, a great city island named Manhattan, full of great buildings that seem to touch the very sky. Why, this very hall is in a place they call Times Square."

"Times Square? Is it full of clocks?" Raven gasped. "And can they really make things so big? Taller even than the Aviary?"

"Oh, my very little one, they dwarf even the mightiest towers here. Standing _here_, you and I and Rinzen seem quite alone. But if we but changed that one aspect's value, without even moving a step, we would be surrounded by millions of people and buildings that blocked out the sky!"

Raven marveled at the thought of the great city – one that the mag-a-zine had shown her - so close to her, and yet so far away that she could never get there now, no matter how far she walked. She found it difficult to imagine buildings so big, filled with so many people. There were only a few thousand people in the Temple and the surrounding area. They seemed like such a great number when they gathered in the square before the Eternal Flame for ceremonies... she could not imagine _millions_. So many people!

"With the magic I am about to teach you, you can change the value of the first, second, third, and fifth aspects. Of course, when you change more aspects at once, you will tire all the more quickly. And if you are too tired, or too upset, it may be difficult to navigate correctly between values on the aspects. Then you might get lost."

"Lost? Has anyone ever gotten lost like that before?"

"Yes."

The silence after the answer was heavy with meaning. "Were they ever found?" she asked quietly, looking at Rinzen this time for an answer. He merely closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Oh."

"For now, while you are fresh, we will focus on only changing the first aspect. When we meet each day for lessons, from here on out, my young student, we will focus on adding more to your skills, until the feel of where you are and the knowledge of where you are going run in your blood. I will teach you to see ahead, so you can arrive in an empty space safely. We will do the fifth, last of all. Until then, all of your movement will be within Azarath's dimension. When you change the fifth aspect, or higher aspects, you are then traveling to what most people would refer to as 'other dimensions'."

"Will we go to Earth soon? And see Man-hat-un?"

Azar smiled again and coughed into her hand. "You are not ready for the other worlds, my dear, and they are not ready for you. You are only a very little one, after all. For the moment, we will master going from one end of this hall to the other. And if you do well," she continued with a slow wink, "we will both travel to the library to visit a friend of ours. I think Theron would like some company, yes?"

**

* * *

**

It was like gazing into a mirror, with a dark reflection scowling back at her. But this was not the kindly image that had smiled at her when she had gazed into the soul of Jericho. This one was in front of her, now, in the real world, and it seethed with barely controlled fury.

The reflection laughed. There was no flame, no earthquake and no armies of demons raging on the horizon. She only had two eyes, but just seeing her there was frightening enough for Raven, who had some idea of what this odd ghost was capable. Some students fled the courtyard, leaving shouts of "Girl Fight!" in their wake. Others gathered in the doors and the windows, eyes wide in anticipation of feminine violence.

"Why are you here?" she taunted. "Shouldn't we be in college? With men? Instead of these children? _Tsk_, _tsk_, how irresponsible of you, Raven, to endanger so many who are so young.

We both know how dangerous you are, with or without me."

Raven crouched down, hand brushing the earth beneath her, getting her balance, unsure of how to move next, thoughts racing through her head faster than Bart with too much coffee in his system.

"Why don't you flee?" her opponent continued with a sneer. "Why don't you run? Too afraid I'll hurt these infants? Well, don't you worry your pretty little head, my darling, I'm not interested in petty little humans. I'm only interested in _thieves_."

Raven's thoughts froze in their tracks at that last word. She tilted her head to truly study this figure in front of her and began to focus on what this being was saying.

"I learned a few things in my time in hell," the young woman growled. "Like how you stole my body. Did you ever read the book Azar left to us? You might not remember it, but I do. Did she tell you her plan, you dirty little thief? About how you stole my _life_?"

"_Your_ life?" Raven finally managed to spit out. Confusion gave way to anger inside of her, anger almost as deep as that which she felt flowing out of the other. She stood, feet planted firmly in place, and growled, "Who are you, to speak to me of stealing a life, when others have always taken it from me?"

"Ha! You do not believe even the fruits of your own scheming, do you? Can it be that you still have no memory of what you did? Karma truly is a bitch sometimes." A smirk crawled across her face. "But I remember. I remember Azarath. Coman and Azar. Rinzen. And our Theron. Dear, dear, brother Theron." Raven shivered. Theron. She had never said his name aloud, not since leaving the temple behind. _How could she know? Unless... _ "Yes," she continued as if reading the words flashing across Raven's eyes, "I _remember_. Your soul invaded my body before I could even be born. Never mind the body was already occupied, occupied by me. It took a tour of hell to realize it, but now I know. You possessed me, controlled me, from the moment my body was born until the moment it died. _You_ possessed _me_."

And in amongst the flames of fury licking the sides of her brain, Raven sensed a kernel, a seed of belief. This dark shadow believed every word she uttered. And somewhere, deep inside, a hidden part of her soul-self stirred and whispered, "Truth." Raven's eyes widened as that seed took root and spread into her mind. And she knew that this Other believed every word of it.

"Who's the demon now, little Azar?"


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

_In the Azarath of the past..._

"So, what is Azar teaching you these days?" Theron asked her. "I have not seen your shining face in here dat much lately."

"We have been in the Hall of the Gray Eagles from before first bells until after the midnight vigil sometimes. Not today, though. She is preparing for tomorrow's high holy day." Raven closed the book she was examining and picked up a quill. Dipping it in ink, she replied, "She just taught me how to pull memories from someone's mind and actually see them again. I do not know how I will ever use, though. I am forbidden to do it to anyone here except for Rinzen, who let me do it to him in our lesson. And his memories are pretty boring." She blinked for a moment, then looked up at him. "Can you do that, Theron?"

"No, dat is one lesson I did not learn, I have enough trouble dealin' wit' people wit'out knowin' dere secrets. Ha, I don't recommend doin' dat t'Coman," he said with a laugh. He placed two more books on the pile, the fruits of his latest visit to some distant and hidden storehouse of them. They smelled of must and damp and were coated with thick layers of dust. Some of the covers were torn or missing altogether, and she had seen Theron spend many hours repairing them, lovingly stitching together new protective covers for books that seemed older than Azarath itself. "De library, she keep me pretty busy. I am glad for de help. Nobody else comes in here."

The girl lifted one of the books, which was large in her small hands, but not as large as it might have been in the past. Her handwriting in the library catalog was now smaller and neater than it was on the earlier pages, and her fingers were longer and more graceful. Even though she did not have the curves of a grown woman, the quill that had danced over her head a few years ago did not seem quite so gigantic in her hand now.

"Theron," she said after a long moment, "do you know about the armor in the Hall of the Gray Eagles?"

"Yes," he replied without looking up from the cover of one gnarled tome.

"Why is it there? I thought armor was only used for war."

He sighed. "Ah, m'little bird, dat is a long tale dat I'd best leave to Azar to tell you, since it belongs to her." He finally looked up at her and chuckled. "Did you know, your cloak barely reaches to your knees now. I t'ink Ole Aquila will need to weave you up a new one."

"He made this one just a few months ago," she replied as she examined yet another of the books in the pile beside her. Theron was the only person at the Temple that talked to her this way, and even he tended to change the subject when it came to certain questions. "I do not think he will be happy if he has to do it again, so soon." She knew the old cloth master would be unhappy to repeat the work. She could almost taste the sourness of his impatience for the extra work she caused him every time she grew, which lately was quite a bit. She was the only one in Azarath young enough to grow. No one else caused the weaver so much trouble. She wrinkled her nose as she breathed in the smell of moldy pages, which distracted her from thoughts of Aquila. She frowned and set the book aside on the pile of books that needed some additional care before they rested on the shelves lining the great library.

"And if y'keep growin' like this, missie, you may be a tall one, yet. What are dey puttin' in your incense these days, to make y'grow so much? I'll have to set some books on your head t'slow y'down. How old are y'now?"

"Ten years, Theron, I-" Her voice broke off in mid-thought. She felt a tug deep inside her, a sense of deep urgency that was pulling her in the direction of the quarters of her teacher. "Azar! No! Oh, no!" she shrieked. She clutched at her chest and disappeared in a puff of black smoke. The book she had been holding fell to the floor with a booming echo.

Theron stared at the tome for a moment, then slowly bent over to retrieve it. He ran his rough-knuckled hands over the ancient leather cover, as if to comfort it. His eyes closed gently and with great sadness. "So, my friend and my teacher," he said softly as he bowed his head. "It is time."

* * *

From the corner of her eye, Raven saw two teachers burst out of the doors in an attempt to break up a fight that had yet to come to blows. Raven could not fight and would not fight; it was against everything she had been taught. Yet her "double" was right; she also could not flee without leaving her schoolmates, just children, in danger. She desperately wished that Garfield was there beside her, to at least reassure her that what she saw was real. Her heart reached out for him even as her mind focused on the threat in front of her.

She shuffled out of reach as the other girl reached for her and drew back with a dancer's grace. "Looks like you've been training, you are faster than thought you were," she said. "But don't worry. I've learned a few things in our time apart. Things you need to know."

She tossed a ball of light from her hand into the air above them, and it blossomed into a net of crackling energy around the two of them and knocked the teachers back off their feet. The remaining students in the courtyard stumbled over each other in a rush to flee what was turning out to be no ordinary girl fight. Raven could feel their fear and outrage but fortunately did not sense any pain or injury in them as they scrambled to their feet. In the back of her mind she vaguely recognized her literature teacher, who also happened to be a former Marine. He pulled out a cell phone and talked hurriedly into it as he and the other teacher backed away to the side of the courtyard. His determination as he tried to find another way to her bolstered her courage.

The stranger gestured at the arcs of light surrounding them. "They don't know what this this is, do they? But then again, they don't know you they way I do. Your friends would recognize this, wouldn't they? At Starfire's almost-wedding to your dear friend Richard?" She licked her lips. "What a _delicious_ time that was. Too bad you were too dead at the time to enjoy it." Images of another cage, long ago, tickled the backs of Raven's eyes, distracting her from the present moment for a moment. The hazy memories made her heart race all the faster, while the static in the air made the hair on her arms stand up. The only thing keeping her heart from pounding out of her chest was the view of her teacher prowling around the streams of light, looking for a way in, avoiding touching the sparks crackling from the barrier.

The stranger's eyes flicked from Raven to the teacher and back again with a smirk creeping across her face. "Just the two of us, my old friend," the shadow self growled softly. "I have no quarrel with them. And do not worry, I do not wish to harm you. I would not hurt the prize that is mine. You took my body. It is only fair that I take yours."

Raven crouched lower without replying, fingers digging into the edge of a courtyard brick, wondering if she could phase in just close enough to this being to spirit her... _it?_ ... away to somewhere that Raven could control. But she kept moving just fast enough and randomly enough that it was hard to gauge where to emerge in such a small space. The waves of sheer cold _hate _that this being sent her way pushed at her and weighed on her like a great weight on her shoulders. It wasn't a sudden angry hate, but a cold, calculated, carefully crafted hate, as if it had been nursed and tended over many years.

The stranger's eyebrows knit together. "Too good to talk to me?" she asked. "Come now, we are old friends. You must have _something_ to say." A seed of frustration was growing inside Raven's opponent, and the empath knew that staying silent might just give her the edge she needed. She had never known a taste like this. A hate like this, even from an imposter, could destroy all within reach without a care. Raven _had_ to get the upper hand here, _had_ to discover from where this cold wind had blown. The ache caused by the tension in her muscles was nothing compared to that. She was ready to jump, ready to cover that distance, ready to make that leap into the dimensions, but another presence ... several even ... registered along with the teacher, and she knew that she was no longer alone.

An eagle screamed overhead, and somehow she knew that this one bore green feathers. The fierce cry carried above the sizzling sounds of the energy barrier surrounding her. Her heart soared with sound. She felt rather than saw Victor leaping into and landing in the courtyard just outside the border of her prison. She allowed herself a slight smile of her own as her mind ticked off what must be happening out there, even as she and this shadow person spiraled around each other in ever tighter circles: her teacher rattling off the details of the situation, Vic barking to Gar and... _Kid Flash_? Bart suddenly appeared on her empathic radar with the strange young Azar leaping out of his arms. A cloud of agitation hovered around her.

Garfield seemed to remember the cage of light, even if Raven did not, and his furry thoughts broadcast right through the barrier as he started to gopher his way down into the ground.

Raven wasn't the only one who noticed the change in their audience. "Well, it looks like your dwarfs are here, my silent little Snow White. Too bad it's not all seven. It wouldn't do you any good, but the more, the merrier. Not that they are ever far behind you, princess," her opposite said, and the cage glowed ever brighter and larger, forcing everyone else even further towards the walls of the courtyard just as Victor started pounding the side of it with his ultrasonic cannon. She glared briefly and shuddered at the increase of energy. Raven noticed with a start that a few strands of white were crawling through the jet black hair. "But we can't let them be peeping toms, now can we?"

She popped out of view and back in behind Raven, leaving dark smoke in her wake. She did it again, and again, never leaving the cage, then Raven realized that she was doing something Raven had done in the past ... she was creating a smoke screen. Each time she reappeared, though, she seemed slightly weaker, more gray. The strain of the arcs of power and the teleportation and her focus on Raven were wearing her down ever so slowly, and Raven poised, ready to take advantage of it, so she could contain her, and finally discover where she had come from.

In the one clear spot to Raven's right, she could still see Victor firing one ultrasonic shot after another at the walls surrounding her. While others were struggling to find an opening, Azar Sian simply stared at the arcs of energy as if she were studying them. Her lips moved as if she were counting silently or issuing commands to nonexistent soldiers. Raven's eyes flicked back to her opponent as she appeared and disappeared again and again, then back to Sian as she raised her hands. Her sleeves fell down her arms and revealed the glittering mysterious metal skin underneath. She placed her hands flat against the light, then spread them wide, moving the arcs of energy aside and creating a door where there was none before. A tearing sound rippled through the crackling of the cage.

The darker Raven turned to look at the new player in the game in shock. "Azar!" she hissed. She bared her teeth at Sian.

"_Demon_," Sian replied with a growl of her own as she planted her feet in a strong stance between Raven and her shadow. Her words were simple but strong. "Leave. Her. Alone."

With a roar, the stranger launched herself at Sian. Sian, never moving her feet, raised her hands again. The energy of the cage flowed down and across the shining surface of her armor and arced across to land squarely in the other's chest, knocking her onto her back with a thud. The pain radiating from her slammed into Raven and drove her to her knees. Sian shrugged sharply, breaking the stream for a moment, then braced her stance and leaned back into the wall of the cage itself, directing even more of the energy back at its source. Raven screamed as the echo of the stranger's agony ripped at her as well.

Raven's double raised her head from the ground and muttered through clenched teeth, "I have no time for this." Clutching her chest as more white crept into her hair and small wrinkles dug into the skin of her cheeks, she looked from Raven to Sian and back again and smiled softly. "I had meant for this to be a small party, just you and me. But don't worry. I'll get what I want, in time. I'll settle for the death of a dream, for now." Before anyone else could even blink again, she faded back into the cloud of smoke she had already created and disappeared from view. Raven felt the empathic hole left behind in the courtyard as her attacker slipped away. In her weakened state, she could not sense the other's intended destination. She wondered with a shiver if this person had even picked a destination or if she had gotten lost in an interdimensional riptide in her confusion and exhaustion. She wasn't entirely unsure if that would be a bad thing, either. She looked up at Sian, who extended a hand to help her to her feet. The "Azar's" eyes were filled with the relaxed readiness that Raven had often sensed from Starfire over the years. As Sian released her hand, she recalled that her strange attacker had _recognized_ this young warrior. Her fading pain gave way to confusion.

The smoke had yet to clear when the green gopher Raven was waiting for burst out of the courtyard grass next to her foot. He coughed as the smoke wafted over him. "Hey!" he spat between coughs. "Leave some for me!"

Behind her, she could hear the principal's voice ask, "Miss Roth?"

* * *

Author's Notes:

- Very early in Raven's career, we saw her pull memories from people's heads several times. I have not seen her use that particular ability lately, but it has come in handy for our friend several times in the past.

- For the "cage" and Dick/Kori's almost-wedding, see the original series #100 ... for me a truly awful moment in Raven's history ... she threw the cage around herself and Starfire so she could "plant" a Trigon seed inside our favorite Tameranean... a seed that turned out to be Raven's "good" side. The dichotomy shown in the very long painful storyline is what we are seeing play out in this scene.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

_In the Azarath of the past..._

The travel-smoke in Azar's private quarters cleared enough for Raven to confirm what she had already felt from the library. Rinzen was cradling the shaking form of the almost-goddess in his arms. The many layers of Azar's robes flowed over the hard tile floor as her attendant struggled to lift her. Black ink dripped from the book stand that towered over them. It was pooling in the floor and soaking her sleeve. It had spilled from an overturned bottle and flowed like a river across the large tome resting there, as if the book itself were wounded.

"Azar!" Raven cried out as she scrambled across the room. She helped Rinzen carry Azar over to one of the long padded benches in the study. The girl's chest felt heavy, partly from fear and worry, and partly from the shrieking of her foster-mother's pain. Raven perched on the narrow couch beside Azar and held one hand to the deeply wrinkled face. "You are ill, Teacher, let me-"

"No!" Azar growled. Rinzen grasped the girl's wrist and pulled it away from the lady's face. "Remember... remember what I told you, my child. Remember..."

Through blurry eyes, Raven glanced from her teacher's face to her robes, noticing how the normally brilliant red dress was drained of its brightness and how that magnificent mane of white hair was now so dry and brittle. Her mighty teacher was now so frail. She could feel the powerful presence that had always surrounded her slipping, slipping away. The ache in the woman's chest was radiating out to the rest of her body, and she knew that Azar's limbs felt as if they were filled with lead.

With a rattle in her voice, Azar weakly lifted her hands to her attendant and said, "Rinzen, my rings... the book … remember ... we must... please help me..."

Rinzen nodded, and gently held first the one hand, then the other, slipping off the golden orbs that rested on her gnarled fingers.

"No," Raven protested as Rinzen placed them on her own younger fingers, "these are yours, Azar, I-"

"No, they are yours now," Azar said, more sternly. "You must... accept them... wear them always... and remember... remember what I have taught you when look at them... and know... know my heart walks with you... Rinzen... go and fetch the others to the Eternal Flame, then help... help me into... my armor... there is... not much time... Arella... have Tynan fetch Arella... and remember... my instructions... the book...my book..."

Rinzen clasped her hand to his chest and nodded, seeming not to care about the ink from her sleeve smearing across his own gray robes. He gently passed Azar's hand to Raven's smaller ones, stood, and disappeared into a cloud of thick smoke.

"You cannot die, Azar, you-"

"I am mortal, I assure you, I can." She coughed weakly, then pulled Raven closer to her. "While we are alone, I must... must tell you... do not make their mistake, my dear, dear friend. I am no goddess, though they wish it were so. If they do what I think they will do... promise me, promise me..."

"P-Promise? Oh, Teacher...oh, no..."

"That you will not... not pray to me... that you will not worship... _me_. They will, once I have ascended, no matter what I say. No divine creature am I, but a created one... but do not tell them... they will not accept it, this promise is... is between _us_... promise me..."

"I do, I promise, anything, just do not leave me," Raven replied with a quiver in her voice, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. "I am afraid ... of ... of being without you. Who will teach me? M-mother is afraid of me. Coman _hates_ me. You _have_ to stay..."

"No... no... little one, do not fear Coman or the Council," she whispered. "Learn from them what you can, listen to your Mother... learn how to protect... protect our mother world... and if you must leave the temple to protect it, then _leave_," she rasped. "Before they find us... my dear friend ... there is one more lesson I must teach you..."

_Later_...

The heavy door to her chamber thudded shut, closing out the worried faces of Arella and Coman and the rest of the Temple and leaving Raven alone, truly alone, at last. The golden orbs, the only jewelry she had ever been given to wear, were as heavy as great stones on her hands. For the first time since Rinzen had slipped them onto her fingers, she realized that while they were heavy, they were not too big for her. She would have guessed earlier that any rings that would fit her teacher would be loose on her small fingers, but they fit perfectly, as if they had shrunk of their own accord. She turned her palms over and saw the stains of the ink that had soaked Azar's sleeve across her gloves. She bit her lip and refused to let the tears flow. She had _promised_.

She slipped out of her cloak and shoes, curled up on her great bed and drew the curtains in a vain attempt to shut out the ocean of grief and pain that swirled around her. Some of it flowed from the throng of mourners still holding vigil around the Eternal Flame for their lost goddess, and some of it was her own. She stroked one of the rings with the tip of her finger, recalling all the times she had watched them glittering on the hands of the one who had guided her for so long. They made her think of the armor that no longer stood silent in the Hall of the Gray Eagles; it was now encased in the tomb of her foster-mother. She mulled over how with her last words Azar had asked Arella to take over her education; she was unsure of having her wish to be with her mother come true at last. She thought to herself, _What will my life be like, now?_

She remembered the last secret, the one that Azar had whispered to her before the others had come to carry Azar to the Eternal Flame. She cherished what Azar had given her: the number, the path that would lead her from Azarath's dimension to Earth's. The most important treasure in all the worlds, and Azar had given it to her. The image of Azar's death faded and was replaced by a vision of another world. She chanted that secret, like a mantra, curled her mind around the image of it, imagining the number glowing with the blues and greens and tans of that world that she had seen in the mag-a-zine, embracing it with all her being.

She would go there some day. She would see a real blue sky. She would walk in the sun and swim in the sea. She would keep it safe, like she had promised.

"Good night, Earth," she whispered.

* * *

"_It's a matter of safety, Mr. Stone_," the principal had said. _"We can't afford more attacks like this."_

"_Think of it this way … she's not a _really_ a minor … she's not _required_ to attend school_," her literature teacher had said. Her literature teacher, the former Marine, the one Victor had worked with to get her into the school, the only one until today who knew her real name, the one that had tried to help her, had been unable to keep her there.

Now sitting in the safety of the tower meeting room, Raven tried to replay the events of the last two hours in her head. They were surreal. The snippets of poetry, the chemistry equations and even those unnerving triangles she had danced with earlier in the day were fading in the face of the stranger that had come and taken it all away. That face frightened her in a way that the mirror-image she had met in Jericho's mind had not. Now her secret identity stood revealed to pretty much anybody that had watched the cell-phone video of the whole incident. It was on the internet before they had even left the courtyard. And after that, she found she was no longer welcome there. _Death of a dream, indeed, _she thought as she remembered the words of her attacker. _And why did this happen? _

"Because I dared disturb the universe," she muttered softly. "Normalcy. I should have known better."

"Oh, don't go all Prufrocky on me, Raven," Bart said. "Why do you need that stinky old school, anyway? I get out of going to mine as often as I can. If you wanna read some Eliot, we'll go see _Cats_ or something!"

"_Prufrocky_?" Azar asked, eyebrow arched. "Language has changed so much!"

"It's from a poem somebody wrote, kind of a sad one," Bart replied. "I read a lot of poetry, and a whole lotta other things, in the city library a while ago. I'll show it to you sometime. Raven, I'll tell you everything I read there if it'll make you feel better. Who needs a school when I'm around? You'll like the book about the jellicle cats, I promise!"

"Later, Bart," Cyborg broke in. "Right now-"

"-we need to find out who attacked you," said Gar.

"- we need to plan an assault," said Azar.

"-we need to calm down!" said Cyborg.

"-we need to go camping!"

Everyone turned to Bart. He continued, "Well, we've got some thinking to do, right? And we need a quiet place to do it before the _Superheroes Tonight_ crew bugs us about this. Again. And what if that other girl comes back here looking for you? The tower is the most obvious place in the world for you to be." He stroked his chin and closed a single eye, deep in thought. "Charlie and Karen keep asking you to come and visit, right? And she probably doesn't know about them, right? He's an empath, like you, right? Maybe he'll have some advice for ya, Raven."

Gar's hand tightened on her shoulder as Bart spoke. "You know, hun," he said finally, "it's not a half-bad idea. We could get outta here for a while. Think about what happened. About what we'll do next."

"And we could go too, y'know, for uh, moral support. Yeah. Sit by the fire and tell ghost stories. Yeah."

"The young Shogun offers sound counsel," Azar said as she nodded in agreement. "Fire is sacred to our people, and the right place for learning truth and for healing. I think you need a little of both, my lady. I believe I know what has happened today, but in order to understand you must know some of your own history. I can tell you my tale in the proper way, if you will hear it, Arjh-no-ree."

"I'd like to hear it, too," Bart said to Raven. "That is, if you don't mind."

"So would I," whispered Gar, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since her attacker's disappearance. His eyebrow had arched when he heard Sian use that strange title. He leaned in and brushed his cheek against hers. "It might help us figure out what happened today."

"I agree," Vic said. "Raven, we need to know as much as possible in case your attacker returns. She did seem to recognize Sian as an Azar, which makes our friend's stock go up with me just a little bit. And I'm pretty sure she will return. On top of that, I'd _really_ like to know how you destroyed that light barrier, Sian."

"Yeah!" yelped Bart. "It was like aikido in a suit! That was seven shades of awesome!"

"I- I am so confused right now," Raven stammered as she looked from her beloved to Victor, avoiding the eyes of the Azar. "I thank you, Sian, for helping me. I do not know who that was. I do not know what to believe. And now... with no school... I do not know what to _do_." They were standing too close to her, hovering over her, their concern – and fear- weighed on her and made it difficult to breathe freely. Gar's mixture of sadness and anxiety were making her queasy, and some cacophony of feelings from Joseph's corner of the room made her chest tighten. Sian was a closed book now, and the only thing she could read from her was determination and conviction of her own words. The empath had not stopped shaking since they had returned to the tower, and she wondered if she was able to read others correctly at this point. She felt more lost now than she had when her first Teacher had left her. The Rings of Power that Azar had left her had disappeared long ago when her own original body died, and she was bereft of even that feeling of guidance.

Bart interrupted her reverie. "Well, for now you can learn how to roast some marshmallows! It's a valuable skill, you know."

Gar said, "I think you could use a break, I really do." He sighed. "I know I could."

In the background, one of the tower phones was ringing again. No one made a move to answer it. Azar nodded in the direction of the sound and said, "My lady, time is short."

Raven replied with a choked sigh, "Actually, I suppose I have time aplenty, now." But there was a slight hint of excitement behind all the fear and uncertainty as her thoughts chased one another. _Could it be? Could it be that I am not the one who brought Trigon into this dimension? I am not the one that destroyed Koriand'r's homeworld? Could it be that I am not who I believed myself to be? That I am not... a demon?_ She studied the young stranger across the room from her. A few hours ago, she had sensed that her attacker believed her own words. She sensed the same belief in her rescuer now. Somewhere in between must be the truth. So many questions burned within her as she turned her gaze to the young man sitting next to her and wondered how he would take the answers. _And if that is so, what will my life be like, now?_

* * *

"You want to help her, don't you?" Blood's almost-voice curled around in Jericho's mind. "So do I … my wife should not suffer like an ordinary mortal. But I'm not sure why she seems so devastated. She doesn't belong there with those children, anyway."

Jericho found himself replying to the voice in spite of himself. "Of course I want to help her. But I can't even touch her. Not with Gar around."

"Oh, but you _can," _the hidden voice purred. "You can do things for her that he can't. Just _will_ her to be calm. Tell her to go, and to bring us along, so we can get out of this accursed tower and discover who attacked my wife. And who stole my book. Honestly, I suspect that they are one and the same. Silently tell her that, and then watch."

Jericho's jaw tensed, and he hoped Raven could not sense his internal dialog and that no one else could see his silent struggle. For now, though, her current turmoil seemed to be shutting everything else out. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, tell she didn't need that school, that she had everything she needed right here. But the thought of treating someone else like a marionette made him ill.

"You just want to make her feel better. That is now within your power," Sebastian coaxed, the silent inner voice sliding effortlessly through his brain. "What harm is there in that?"

* * *

A veil of serenity that usually only appeared after hours of meditation fell over Raven. She did not know its source, but she was thankful for it. She took a few deep, slow breaths. She could almost hear the voice of Thunder Horse whispering to her soul that this was a path she should follow.

She lifted her face to meet Sian's eyes for the first time. She felt ready. "All right. I will call my cousin."

* * *

Slade's communicator crackled to life. "Deathstroke, old buddy, old pal, ready for some more intel?"

Slade looked up from the imposter Book of Blood he was examining. "Listening in on the tower again, Noah?"

"Oh, hell no, better than that," the Calculator replied with a snort. "Didn't you catch Bill Betterman tonight?"

"You know I don't have time for that garbage," Slade growled.

"_Ouch_, that _hurts_, amigo, considering I sell them some of their best stories. One of our favorite capes was the guest star of a little clip they showed tonight. Sending you a link now. I suggest you take a look."

Slade watched the video with ever-growing curiosity. The now-familiar butterfly that had been traveling with him flitted about behind his head in a nervous fashion. It seemed as shocked as he was to see the old face of Raven fighting the new one.

"Pret-ty freak-y, wouldn't you say?" came Noah's voice again. "It's like Kirk and Evil Kirk, but I can't tell which is which, if you take my meaning? It's probably gone viral at this point. I don't think Betterman made this up, either. Even if he didn't get it from me."

Slade stroked his beard as the butterfly landed on his shoulder. "Any clues as to where this other girl came from?" he asked.

"Well, I did some facial recognition searches," the Calculator replied. "Don't worry, I just added the cost to your tab. I did find her in a few places, snatching clothes and food here and there, and guess what?"

"Black smoke?"

"In most of the clips. So that's an even better match. I followed the timestamps backwards, and the earliest one was from a convenience store not far from a national park. That's funny, one of my former customers used to keep a weapons cache there. Twilight Canyon. Interesting. Hey, Wilson, you know what I've been thinking?"

"You're thinking that if Raven didn't take the Book of Blood from Manhattan College, then maybe this other girl did," Slade said. The butterfly opened and closed its wings slowly on his shoulder, as if it were pondering something along with him. "She has the same abilities and if she's connected to Raven or Blood at all, maybe the same motivation."

"Exactly," Noah responded. "Some of the later shots of her were all the way over near the Big Apple and Bean Town, like she was hunting for something."

"Massachusetts? Buzzard's Bay, I presume? Blood's east coast cathedral used to be there."

"_Used to be_ is the operative phrase there. But at the college, they only had a security camera on the outer door and not in the room where the book was. So there was no reason for her to appear on their security tapes. Guess they didn't think too many people would be coming after it." He paused a moment, and then he muttered softly, "Damn, that's a skill I'd love to have."

_Wouldn't we all?_ Slade thought.

"Hell," Noah continued, "_she_ might be the real Raven and the one at the tower might be an imposter, for all we know."

"Who is the other young lady? The one in the armor?"

"She's not a member of the team as far as I know... The weird thing is, I did the same search on her, and her earliest vid sighting comes from about the same area as the other gal. Maybe they're connected. Nightwing didn't even seem to know her when I listened in last time, and he knows every cape that's out there. But whoever she is, I'd love to get my hands on that tech. Oh, and if you find her?"

"Yes, Noah?"

"Ask her if she wants a job."

* * *

Author's Notes:

- Raven's promise to Azar: In the Tales of the New Teen Titans #2, Raven's origin story, there was a couple of panels that were confusing to me, so I wanted to write something to make them make sense. Arella commented privately to Coman that Raven usually skipped prayers and always ran over to meditate. Raven mentions in some little yellow boxes that she could not enlighten her and break her word to Azar. I never really understood what that promise really was, as it must have happened off-panel. So I decided to fill in that little gap.

- Azar's Armor: In the same comic, when Azar is dying, she is wearing armor. It is only for a few panels, but it seemed rather bizarre to me that a pacificst goddess would be wearing armor. (Remember Raven wondered the same thing in the last chapter.) The new Azar here is also wearing armor of a different sort. I do intend to explain that in Sian's story. But those panels really begged for some filling in of the gaps, as it was another Azarathian mystery.

- the Book of Azar: in one of the panels in the same comic, in the sequence where Azar is training Raven, there is a picture of her standing over Raven, helping her read a very large book. That is where my idea for the Book of Azar came from (which will also be part of Sian's story). Also, the Book of Azar was mentioned in the animated series at one point. I REALLY don't want to cross over with the animated world. I enjoyed that series, but I want to keep them separated for the most part in the Hunterverse. However, that does not mean that a few of the ideas (and maybe villains at some point in the future) won't cross over. Some day, Matt Logan should go up against Control Freak, my favorite villain of the animated series. That would be an awesome story, if I ever get the time to write it.


	15. Chapter 15

Author's Note: I promise, I'm still around and I haven't forgotten the story! Honest! I hope everyone is well and happy. I still intend to finish this thing, even if I'm in the nursing home when I do it.

Chapter 14

_In the Azarath of the past..._

"Where is the book, Theron?" Coman looked as close to furious as he ever got.

Theron gestured towards the towering shelves that filled the massive library. "_Which_ book? We have lots of dem here."

"You know of what I speak. Azar's great book disappeared the day she left us. Rinzen was with her most of that day. When we came to … collect her … it was not on its stand. Rinzen himself has made himself scarce since then. _One_ of you knows where it is. It is a treasure of Azarath, and we must have it back."

Theron glanced briefly over the shoulder of the remaining leader of Azarath. Rinzen, Azar's former attendant, was looking out from the shadows of the stacks of books. His eyes seemed to be boring holes into the back of Coman's head.

"You mean _you_ must have it, Coman. No. She left it to _Raven. _It belongs to her."

"It belongs to us all! You do not understand what its loss would mean-"

"I do know that for all of my time here, you have never bothered with any of de books. Why dat one, and why now? Can you just not stand the fact that Azar actually loved her? Or are you afraid it will show her de path out of dis place?"

Coman's eyes burned with a rage that could no longer be hidden. Theron felt a small spark of glee at the emotion the stony old man was finally showing. He could almost see Rinzen's eyes rolling as he stepped back into deeper shadows.

"_Why_ are you undermining our work here?" Coman replied, his voice overflowing with frustration. He lowered his voice, but his fists were clenched. "Why do you give the child _hope_? Why show her a world she will never see? A world in which she does not belong?"

"Ah, so dis goes beyond de book, even. Why would you keep her ignorant, Coman?" Theron argued back. "She is a human being. She too is a child of Earth. She deserves to be free! She deserves to know what she is protectin'!"

"She is _not_ an ordinary human child, Theron! She is not one of us. You were not one of the originals; you don't understand. I must continually remind you—"

"I do not care about her father! I have only been here a little time, I know dat. But are you nuts, mon?" Theron's lilting accent deepened with his anger. "She is still just a baby. A _baby_! Did you ever actually listen to Azar's words?"

"You are endangering our work here, Theron," Coman replied. His voice had returned to its normal icy placidity. "You are not one of us, either."

"What are you saying?" Theron asked, with measured words. He could see Rinzen reaching up onto one of the shelves to his right and pulling down a heavy volume.

Coman drew his robes close and jutted his chin high into the air. His voice echoed through the library.

"Theron, formerly of Earth, I hereby banish you from the Temple of Azarath, never to return."

Rinzen rushed out of the stacks of shelves with the Book of Azar in hand and planted himself by Theron's side. He rested his hand on Theron's shoulder and narrowed his eyes at Coman. The elder glared at both of them, taking in the wall of men and the heavy tome in Rinzen's hands. He reached forward for it.

"Rinzen! Give it to me!" he ordered. "Remember your vows!"

"Nuts!" Theron shouted. "His vow was to Azar, not you, not to the Temple, but only to her and the child," Theron replied. "And mine was to Azar, too. He goes with me, and so does the book, so we can give it to Raven when she is old enough to care for it."

"You would betray us, then, Rinzen?"

A single word escaped the man before he and Theron disappeared into their own puff of smoke.

"Nuts!"

* * *

Raven gazed into the fire and listened to the warm chatter that mingled with its smoke. She had managed to push off Sian's story just a little while longer, first with the business of setting up the tents, then with allowing Karen to fuss over the finer points of their campfire meal. She knew it would not wait forever, but she needed just a few more moments of peace, just a few more.

Bart was spearing marshmallows with a stick while he chirped cheerfully to a beaming Sian and a taciturn Jericho, who was also staring into the flames and occasionally sipping from a canteen. Cyborg and Charles were murmuring quietly to her right as Karen passed graham crackers and bits of chocolate around the circle. Cassie and Connor, somewhere in the stages of reconciling after some sort of private disagreement, sat across from her. They had arrived much later than the rest of them, staring at each other with some unknown tension between them. Tim had not been able to come with them, so he was not there to act as his normal balance between them. The light of the fire gleamed across the metal of Victor's arms. Charles was tamping tobacco into his pipe and chuckling softly. She could not see Garfield, who was somewhere outside the small circle of light. She could sense him, though, with the faint taste of sour apple candy on her tongue, the flavor that ever caused a smile to steal across her lips. She watched as his shadow appeared over her cousin's shoulder. Muscular green hands emerged from the darkness and placed a dark shape by the Charles's side. Her cousin nodded at Garfield, who then circled the fire and slipped into the space between Raven and Bart. She felt his arm curl around her shoulders, and she welcomed the gentle pull towards him. She rested her head against his shoulder and inhaled his distinctive scent deeply. _My family_, she murmured to herself.

Sian grunted happily as she rubbed her belly. "My thanks, mistress Karen, that was truly a feast fit for an Azar!"

Gar gave Raven a warm squeeze as Charles picked up the shadow by his side. As he brought the shape into the light, it resolved into a guitar. Its honey-colored wood mirrored the crackling fire.

"Joe," he said as he waved to interrupt Jericho's reverie, "my cousin and this young man here both tell me that you have a great love for music, and that it has been a while since you've had strings under your fingers." He picked at a couple of the strings and turned the knobs on the neck to tune it. "This was my grandfather's. I've never been able to do more than pick out a few bars of 'Goodbye, Old Paint'. I thought maybe this fellow could use a new home."

Charles handed the guitar to Raven. _Grandfather's,_ she thought, as she ran her fingertips across the soundboard, trying to pick up any residual emotions that might be there—something, anything that might give her more insight into the spirit of Thunder Horse. She sensed faint vibrations of gentleness curling around her fingers. She brushed the polished wood one last time and passed the guitar on to Gar. Gar gave it to Bart, who presented the instrument to Jericho with a bow that befitted his position as Shogun of the Stair Luge Samurai.

The pale young man took it into his hands at studied it. Raven could sense that the uncertainty and disorientation stirring within him was starting to fade a little. He rested it in his lap and strummed his fingers over the strings.

"It – it's been a while," he stammered. "I'm not sure if I can still—"

"Your spirit's fingers never forget," Charles said as he lit his pipe. "Just give it a whirl."

"Joseph, please," Raven added, hoping to be of some help to someone who was giving up so much to help her. "It is time to find your voice again."

The guitar complained as he adjusted the knobs to bring it into tune.

"Play us some Garth, Joey," Victor called out.

"Garth?" Superboy asked. "I didn't know Tempest could-hey!" He yelped as Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

"Or perhaps a ballad of recent past," Sian suggested. "Our people have long been away from these lands. I would like a song of the homeworld to take back to them."

Jericho's fingers strummed idly on no particular tune for a moment. He stopped every few seconds or so to turn a tuning knob here, stroke one of the strings gently there. He hummed softly along with it, each vibration of his voice swinging closer and closer to a song, one that sounded familiar.

"I heard this one on the radio yesterday," he said to no one in particular as his eyes studied his moving hands. "Done by a guy named Bublé. I've wanted to sing it since then."

He played a little longer, the strings falling into a soft melody. He sang some lines, drawing out the last word of each measure a little:

_Another summer day_

_Has come and gone away_

_In Paris and Rome_

_But I wanna go home_

_Mmmmmm..._

The first words were shaky, unsure. He sang again, his voice stronger and clearer. It was tinged with homesickness and longing for the familiar. With all her repeated wanderings around the universe, Raven understood that feeling and empathized in more ways than one. She felt the wistfulness in the thoughts behind his choice of the song … his own visits to the cities he sang about, painting, time with his mother, now as dead as Arella. _Such similar paths_, she thought as she closed her eyes and focused on his words again:

_And I feel just like I'm living someone else's life_

_It's like I just stepped outside_

_When everything was going right_

_And I know just why you could not _

_Come along with me_

She felt the image in his mind, strong now, of the white-cloaked image of her old self in his mind that he had to abandon when he fell back into the real world. She felt his eyes on her as he sang on:

_'Cause this was not your dream_

_But you always believed in me_

She drifted into the song as Joseph's gentle singing transformed the voice of Sebastian, which she had feared so much, into a sound of comfort. She could feel his gaze walking around the circle of friends and then resting on her. Pretending not to notice, she sank deeper into Gar's shoulder and then felt him shift her weight into his chest as he settled back onto the rock behind them. His small kiss against her forehead and his whispering of a sweet nothing into her ear only made her drowsier. . .

She opened her eyes with a start. The circle of light was now empty. She could feel the presence of her friends, but she could not see them. The flames still popped and cracked as she gazed around, disoriented. Suddenly, where there had been empty space before, there was a young man wrapped in a woven blanket. His black eyes shone with an inner fire of their own.

"Dawn Child," he said with a smile.

She sat up and smiled back at him. "Grandfather." She looked around at the empty space again. "Is this a dream?" She paused as she felt the air with her hands and sensed his presence layered on top of the empathic signatures of her friends. A shuffling sound to her right drew her attention away from Thunder Horse. A green penguin wandered in out of the darkness, whistling a merry tune.

"Partly a dream, yes. I wandered by when I heard my guitar being played," Thunder Horse replied as he, too, watched the penguin as he waddled back into the night. He continued with a puzzled frown. "But right now I am not certain whose dream it is."

She shook her head. A smile tugged at her lips as she explained, "Garfield must have fallen asleep as well. Sometimes our dreams blend."

"Your young man? He dreams of being a penguin?"

Raven nodded. "He does that."

"You keep interesting company, my child." He held his hands up to the fire, as if enjoying its warmth. A laugh burst out of him, destroying the frown in its wake. "Hah! This, coming from a young old man who haunts your dreams, eh?"

"Grandfather," Raven began, "it is wonderful to see you once more, but why are you here? What has happened? Are you – did you –"

"Did I go to the 'Happy Hunting Grounds' that all of those old Westerns used to talk about? No, child. I'm certainly not alive, but for some reason I am not among the dead, either. I am somewhere _between _them. Perhaps my task in this world is not finished. Maybe someone here still has a need of me, after all this time. Maybe none of the afterlives want me after some of my, um, recent behavior. Or maybe the Great Spirit has had some mercy on me and is allowing me to attend a council fire with the great-granddaughter that I never knew. You must have many questions for me since our last talk."

A squeaking ball of green fur bolted out of the darkness and scrambled up Raven's arm. The chipmunk nestled into the crown of her hair and chattered into the night air. "I do not know where to begin," she replied without taking much notice of her new hat. "But I have wondered since I saw you last… you said… you said that I am the way that I am because I _chose_ to be this way. I don't understand that. How do you know? How could I possibly—"

"Ask the stranger."

"The one who claims to be an Azar? Does she truly know?"

"Yes," he replied, his voice deep and mysterious. Then he chuckled at her startled reaction. "Did you expect me to say something else? I'm the spirit-guide here. I can't tell you _everything_. But I think she can. The Book is genuine. I can tell you that much. Listen to her, listen to what she has to say. Do you think she speaks the truth?"

"She believes what she says."

"Ah, which is not necessarily the same thing as speaking the truth. But at least hear her out. She doesn't have to be all mysterious, like I do. And read the book. I think the book will tell you what you need to know."

Raven sighed. "I suppose there is no harm in seeing what is in it."

He shrugged. "Can't hurt. Might help. See? I am better than a fortune cookie."

Raven shuddered as she tried to suppress a small sound in chest. It boiled over and finally escaped her throat. It startled her until she realized what it was. A giggle. Followed by a snort.

Thunder Horse responded with a waggle of his eyebrows. "I'll bet that was a first."

"Indeed," she said, her voice rippling with more laughter. "It feels good."

"It does, it does," he agreed.

"Grandfather," she began as she wiped a tear – a tear of laughter? How odd! How wonderful! – from the corner of her eye. "There have been times, lately, that I have wished that my mother had sought sanctuary with you instead of going to Azarath. If you had raised me, perhaps both our stories would be different."

"Oh, my little one," he sighed. "You would have been such a delight to me in my sunset years." His eyes followed the bundle of fur that was trembling in her hair. "But, then again, maybe you would not now have your young…ummm... buck."

The chipmunk leaped from her head and shifted mid-air into a skunk. "_Cara mia_," he muttered into her skin as he started nuzzling her hand.

Thunder Horse regarded the scene with kind eyes. "That does not annoy you, Dawn Child?"

"What?"

"All those... _critters_. It is so difficult to pretend to be a wise old duffer while I'm looking at a chipmunk in your hair or a skunk … do whatever he's doing."

"Oh! No. I rather enjoy the attention," she answered, stroking the skunk's ear with a finger on her free hand.

"Ahhhh," he replied, with a knowing wink. "Then you are perfect for each other."

As she smiled back at him, Raven could hear, faintly, what the others were doing around their own fire: Connor and Cassie slipping out of the circle of light... Bart teaching the Azar the proper way to roast a marshmallow... A guitar being retuned... Karen nibbling on a piece of chocolate... Victor reminding Gar of the first time the Titans went camping, when he kept burning his hot dogs, the faint flavor of embarrassment from her beloved. Raven remembered for a moment that that was when she first heard about him being on that television show. Then, finally, Joseph trying to sing again, his voice settling into a soft cowboy tune, slightly out of harmony with Charles's voice. They all felt closer to her than they had a moment before.

"There is something else I must tell you, Dawn Child," Thunder Horse's voice broke into the noise, more serious this time. "Why my body has not been found… you must tell Charlie… I think it still lives somewhere without me..." His voice was growing fainter with every word. "And I must find someone, someone named Winter..."

His voice faded into the distance as he disappeared, to be replaced by the other group around the fire. Gar was gently shaking her, telling her everyone was going to bed. She thought perhaps she was not entirely awake, as she imagined a blue butterfly flit once about Sian's head and disappear into the darkness. She had never seen a butterfly at night, so it must be cobwebs left behind by her dream. With a long and drawn-out yawn, she let him lead her to the tents, wondering if she would be able to recapture that connection with her grandfather, to find out the rest of his story, to remember the last few words he had said before he dissolved into the night. She resolved to tell Charles of the vision in the morning, once she had sorted it all out in her own head.

* * *

Jericho walked over the ridge of rocks that protected the campsite from the wind, guitar in hand, to have a little time to himself. The vast sea of rock spread out below him, and he gazed into the shadows. For the first time in a while, the terrible thirst that had chased him for days receded a bit, and Sebastian's voice had grown quiet. The night songs of the canyon hummed around him. He heard some pebble shifting very close to him, and he turned to face the sound.

He was not alone.

She stood there, wrapped in silence. Her white cloak gleamed in the darkness. Any words he might have spoken caught in his throat. He reached out with one shaking hand and pushed the hood away from her face. He studied the midnight blue eyes that gazed up at him. The flecks of silver in them sparkled against the cold light of the moon.

_This can't be real_, he thought. "Raven?" he asked. He placed a trembling palm on her shoulder. The young woman covered it with her own hand.

"Joseph," she replied. Her voice was so tender. "I am here. I have always been here with you, my love."

"I thought-" The words choked him as they moved through his throat. "I thought I'd lost you."

Her skin felt so soft against his face. "Never," she said softly. She rested her lips against his cheek. "Never," she repeated, then pulled his face even closer, brushing her full, generous lips against his mouth.

"Even when I'm this?" he asked, his voice urgent and hoarse. "You still know me? You're not afraid of—"

"I see your soul, my love," she whispered against his mouth. "The shell does not matter."

He drank her long kiss in, wondering if this was what he had so thirsty for these past days, this warmth, this softness. He finally broke off for air with a deep sigh. He smiled as he heard Sebastian muttering in the far corners of his mind.

"They told me you were just a dream, a fantasy…" Jericho said softly.

"They've been lying to you. The one claiming to be me is an imposter. Trust me, beloved. Trust me. You are all in grave danger."

* * *

Gar stood in front of the open flap of the girls' tent with his hands tucked behind his back. "I wanted to tuck you in tonight, sweets, but Karen's read us guys the riot act about staying out of the ladies' tent." He waggled his eyebrows at the sparkles in her violet eyes, which were now a deep purple in the soft light. "So… I … uh… I got you the next best thing. Hold out your hand."

He revealed the secret package to her, a ball of soft fur not much larger than her hand. A face full of green smiled up at her with a single fang tacked on to the edge of its lip. She held it up the light to see that it wore a small white shirt with a purple collar and sleeves. She gave Gar a soft, earnest smile as she clasped it to her.

"I've never had one of these before," she whispered.

"A teddy bear?"

"A gift," she replied.

His lips twisted for a moment before they softened. "A gift to both of us. From Bart, actually. You really like him?"

She nodded, speechless.

"I'm glad, sweetie," he said. He stroked the head of the toy with the tip of his smallest finger. "But, of course, he wouldn't be complete without _her_…"

He revealed his other hand, which held a mass of brown fur wrapped in a tiny blue cloak. A tiny red rhinestone on its forehead reflected the light of the moon.

Raven gasped. "A little, furry… me?"

Gar chuckled. "Yeah. Cute, isn't she? She can watch out for me whenever you are away – which I hope is very rare, by the way – and he can take care of you when I'm not around, for whatever reason."

He hugged her, cradling the two small bears between them. Burying his face in her hair and inhaling the smoky scent of it, he whispered, "And Gar Bear… he… he can't… " His voice drifted off. He swallowed hard. "He can't help her make little bears."

"He can't… _oh_," she said, as she tightened her arms around him. "Oh, beloved." She could feel the sadness in him even more clearly now that she knew the reason behind it.

"I know it's one less thing for us to worry about," he said into her hair. "It's just that—"

"You wanted the choice."

"Yeah, something like that." He stroked the side of her face. She could feel his need for comfort, and she gladly sent out waves of it from herself into his body. She sensed a source of extreme happiness close by – Connor and Cassie must have slipped away again – and she tapped into it for strength to give to the young man in her arms. They stood there in silence for a few minutes, listening to Bart and Charles bicker over the last of the marshmallows.

"The choice," she murmured into his shoulder. "I am so afraid, beloved, of that choice. Not, not of you, not of the sakutia, but, oh, I do not know why, but I am so afraid."

"It's new ground for both of us, remember? We'll get through it, baby. And someday you won't be afraid anymore."

She pulled back for a moment and looked up at him. "It is not just … intimacy … that has my frightened. I lost my place at school. I am such a _failure_... Will I ever be able to … how does one say it? Pull my own weight?"

He rested his hands on her shoulders and held her still with his eyes. "You are _not _a failure, especially because of that stupid school. You'll figure out what you want to do, hon. You always do. But it's not diplomas or headlines that attract me. Remember, I love _you_. Even when you fall, even when you fail, I love you. Even when you fail. Never, ever forget that – Raven, _what is it?"_

"No, no, no, oh, no," she cried. Her eyes widened as a shiver enveloped her body and crept into her voice. "Azar! No!"

"_She_ is here."


End file.
